I reckon that this would make a pretty awesome platform for introducing students to RISC-V, JTAG, and debugging.
Several ideas;
Raspberry Pi as a JTAG tool - please layout the Grove AI HAT PCB to connect the JTAG pins of the SiPEED MAIX-1 to suitable GPIO pins on the HAT connector so that the Raspberry Pi can be used as a JTAG tool. eg <LINK_TEXT text=“https://github.com/synthetos/PiOCD/wiki … TAG-Dongle”>https://github.com/synthetos/PiOCD/wiki/Using-a-Raspberry-Pi-as-a-JTAG-Dongle</LINK_TEXT>
SPI comms with the Raspberry Pi - please layout the Grove AI HAT PCB so that a Raspberry Pi SPI master on the HAT connector (Raspberry Pi is only an SPI master) can talk to an SPI slave on the SiPEED MAIX-1 (SPI much faster than UART…). However, unlike the K210, the Raspberry Pi doesn’t have a full FPIOA, so you will have to accommodate its limited choice of HAT pin functions when you layout the Grove AI HAT PCB - only some HAT pins can be used for SPI etc.
Power sharing - please tie the +5Vdc plane on the Grove AI Hat PCB to the +5Vdc pins on the Raspberry Pi HAT connector. Depending on current draw, this will allow both the Raspberry Pi and the HAT to be powered from a single power supply connection (one cable instead of two!)