Initially, we're looking for help with the transmitter, making it as efficient as possible. We're using a Genie microcontroller, which is configured for 4 inputs and 1 output. The output is to the IR LED. At the moment, it's got a range of around 4-5m, but we'd like to increase that to as much as possible.

We want to keep the PCB as simple as possible, sticking to through-hole soldering and a single-sided board.

We're using an education-focussed CAD package called Circuit Wizard, which allows us to code and program the chips.