SRLM, I'm in agreement with you on backing into the theory. It's such a good approach I've been backing into it for most of my experimentation life! Really, many of the instructors I know use the same approach - they've got to show the students some results to retain their interests. After that it's much easier and more rewarding to understand why and how something works the way it does. I am also one to experiment first and learn afterwards, whenever possible. It's just a lot more fun, but it probably also keeps me in the mode of designing very limited projects.
Beau Schwabe (Parallax) said... "I don't mean I just "used" a computer. I wrote assembly programs without an assembler. On paper, and hand calculated all the jumps." - That's funny, because I did the same thing. Even printed out a generic Assembly coding sheet derived from coding experiences that I adopted from a COBOL class I took. (<-and I still have my COBOL book - lol - why I'm not exactly sure.)
Many of the things I did early on were peripheral type interfaces. i.e. Using the ATARI 400/800 game ports as Inputs as well as Outputs to drive external circuits (motors, relays, lights, etc.) in Assembly language. -- Come to think of it if you are any part of the Parallax forum, ALL of us are doing that -- LOL!
It's obvious that these early experiences are building blocks that wired our way of thinking at a very young age. Think of what you would have done if you didn't have such a learning tool.
I used a one line op code cartridge called Hes-Mon·I think and used that to write an editor assembler for the 6502 used in the commodore64. I still have the notes in a folder. I actually sold the assembler at local computer shops·it was called IEA for "Instant Editor Assembler" as well as wrote a program called Chopper Math for commodore that sold 100,000 copies. You can still find the program and play it on a commodore 64 simulator under windows·and my name and my wifes name (still married) comes up if you google chopper math.
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Think Inside the box first and if that doesn't work..
Re-arrange what's inside the box then...
Think outside the BOX!
Over in England circa 1966 I had an electronics kit from Philips. That kit got dragged all the way to Australia when we lived there for a year in 1967.
Yeah, now I remember discovering that running the kit off the output of my model railway power supply was generally no good but it did make the organ project into a weird sounding synthesizer. Thus I learned about smoothing and regulating power supplies !
Kept the LDR and transistors, including ancient OC71, for about 15 years.
Ahh, those were the days. When toy shops were full of Meccano, electronics kits, chemistry sets... what happened?
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For me, the past is not over yet.
Meccano!, that is a word I haven't heard is quite a while !. Kids now have playmob1l and LEG0 sets... much less creativity :-(, a bag full of plain ol' blocks and some wheels and you can do almost whatever you want, rainy afternoon ?... let'S build something. Meccano was great, I had a plastic version not the metal one because I'm not that old and my father didn't have one, my mother keeps it, she told me that it is for my kids, whenever they come.
Ale said...
Meccano!, that is a word I haven't heard is quite a while !. Kids now have playmob1l and LEG0 sets... much less creativity :-(, a bag full of plain ol' blocks and some wheels and you can do almost whatever you want, rainy afternoon ?... let'S build something. Meccano was great, I had a plastic version not the metal one because I'm not that old and my father didn't have one, my mother keeps it, she told me that it is for my kids, whenever they come.
I hope the "LEGO sets... much less creativity :-(" is an unfortunate arrangement of words and not your real sentiment [noparse]:)[/noparse].
I think a lot of the reason for reduced presence in bookstores is because of increases presence on the internet. Why go to a bookstore when much of the content is already available for free. And if you really want a book, Amazon (or others) will get it to you in two days (if you can't download it (e.g., oreilly.com). Most of the people buying these books are probably already interested in the material and know how to find it.
Of course, this does not solve the problem of attracting new people - people who might just stumble across things in the bookstore. The number of these kinds of books on the shelves waxes and wanes over time. The last time I looked in Borders, there were quite a few of the "Evil Scientist" type books. Maybe not a whole lot of others, though.
As far as magazines go, they do carry Make, Servo, and Nuts and Volts. I think they carry Circuit Cellar, too. These are all great magazines for attracting new people (although Circuit Cellar is probably over the head of most new people now). I don't know how many people actually buy these magazines - I've never seen anyone buy one. I subscribe to all of these (CC since issue 5, but I have the official photocopy of the first issues) so I'm not contributing to letting Borders know they are popular.
My start in electronics was with kits similar to those described above and others from Radio Shack. And lots of bells, buzzers, light bulbs, switches, and batteries.
I had a TRS-80 Model I. It had a number of things I made attached through the exposed bus - speech synthesis, video (*), random i/o stuff. It was a great way to learn both programming and hardware. At that time, using a computer was much different from today. Today, people know how to use a computer (office apps, games, etc.) but it's a completely different experience.
Microcontrollers today are able to give much of the same experience that a lot of us got earlier with computers. A computer with a few K of memory (maybe up to 64 [noparse]:)[/noparse] ) then is not much different from many microcontrollers today. So, the tools are certainly there. It's just a matter of letting people know they are around and figuring out how to get them involved.
Unfortunately, that's the part I don't know how to do. I think robotics is probably the most visible path. It's probably too late to interest a lot of kids by the time they are teenagers. Maybe it's parents of younger children that need to be interested in this stuff. Imagine growing up with a parent that spends time fiddling with hardware at this level. It's got to have some influence on the kids.
(*) Including a box built around the sprite-based video chip from a TI 99/4A computer and based on a design by Steve Ciarcia in Byte magazine (when Byte was good and before Circuit Cellar became its own magazine).
Here in the USA we had "Meccano" circa 1930's. Later it was renamed "Erector" or "Erector Sets". They were all made by the A. C. Gilbert Company who also sold chemistry sets, biology lab sets, and who knows what else.
With a little imagination and by adding in a few household cleaning products to the chemistry set you could set up quite a smoke screen - one any Hollywood special effects guy would be proud of!
Correction, it was an AF116 and two AC126. Came as naked transistors in their own cardboard boxes like tubes. Don't remember now where my OC71 came from. Wish I still had it, it's something of a collectors item now.
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For me, the past is not over yet.
My start happened as a result of my dad. He and I put together (at the age of about 7-8) a DIY boat. It was simple. Plastic hull, balsa wood deck, and I wound the motor myself. It was powered by one D-cell battery. I still remember playing with that thing in the tub.
Later, my dad bought me the attached kit. I still have it, and look at it regularly. I doesn't have any of the bits (though I know I have a few laying around) anymore. I only went so far with that one, as it quickly went over my head at the age of 7-8.
Later, in late high school, I got back into electronics. Bought myself a tackle box (which I still have and use today for the same thing), all the Forrest Mim's books I could find at the Shack, and a number of descreet components I didn't completely understand (555 timer for one, 741 for another). I only got so far with that stuff again, and ended up becoming a Mechanical Engineer instead.
College didn't help me either. EE class was a joke.
Not until I found a reason to get back into this hobby did I start back up into it again (third time is a charm). This time, it has stuck. Much of that is due to the internet and forums such as this one.
I have never really considered myself as part of the masses. It's not easy to find another person with this same passion. Since we isolate ourselves in our little caves, we don't get out too often to actually see and meet other nerds. Even being surrounded by nerds at work, most of them don't do much more than play Halo and watch American Idol. So, yes, even among our bretheren, we are isolated.
So, it doesn't surprise me that there aren't more books available to us. It'd be cool if Parallax were to link to, or provide said books (do they now?). I'm still trying to find my Mim's books, I'd just buy them all over again, if I could easily and cheaply.
I think maybe the book peterz mentioned earlier is "Getting Started in Electronics". This was the first electronics book I ever bought and I still have my original copy. The "Engineer's Mini Notebook" series of books is now combined together and reprinted as a four volume set.
It seems that the "electronics labs" that many of us here had when we were younger are still available. Not at the prices that we remember, but available in sizes to fit nearly any budget. From the simple crystal radio kit ($9) to a 500-in-1 lab kit with an LCD screen for ($200).
Disclosure: I am not affiliated with MCM Electronics or ELENCO Electronics, the maker of the above kits. I just found these in the same place at good prices in case anyone thinks these might make a great gift for a young person.
These lab kits still represent one of the best ways to generate interest·in electronics and insures the successes that keep them interested.
Two of those kit are how I got started in electronics. That is after all of the smoke got out of my first one.
They got me interested and I would suggest them to anyone.
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The pessimist is never disappointed.
Here in the USA we had "Meccano" circa 1930's. Later it was renamed "Erector" or "Erector Sets". They were all made by the A. C. Gilbert Company who also sold chemistry sets, biology lab sets, and who knows what else.
With a little imagination and by adding in a few household cleaning products to the chemistry set you could set up quite a smoke screen - one any Hollywood special effects guy would be proud of!
My dad had one of those. He didn't go into electronics though, but instead nuclear chemistry. He gave me his Erector set a couple of years ago and I had fun with it, but unfortunately the motor burnt out while working one of my projects (a pulley system lifting a couple pounds). Oh well, at least I still have the metal construction pieces left.
··· I tend to agree that we are a bit of a minority. A fellow I worked with used to say· " ...we ARE the wizards!" Not because we are smarter than everyone else but because we are the ones who dig deeper, go the extra mile, try an experiment for the 900th time·to understand the things that others don't. Just as there were a limited number of wizards in days of yore, we too are a small group.
··· I got started like many of you with Popular Electronics magazine( 1964, I think), Meccano sets, switches wires and all. I was lucky enough to have a high school with a Technical Academic program; lucky enough to go to a technical College then a good engineering school. More than that, I always was surrounded by people who didn't mind getting into a project and getting their hands dirty.
·· Where are the next bunch of electronics hobbiests coming from? While I'm not all that involved in robotics, it seems to have captured the imagination of many up and coming folks. Hopefully some fraction of them will persevere past just getting a new toy and delve into the theory and principles of the motors, gears, sensors and communication used on today's robots.
·· Books and publications have always interested me and I echo some of the comments re Borders, B&N, etc. But, knowing something about the publishing business, low volume paper books are going to continue to decline in availability. On a positive note, the self-publish and book-on-demand is coming ever closer to critical mass. Just Google "self-publishing books".
·· As has been noted, there are kids of both genders who would absolutely love for any technical person to come talk to their grade school or help with science fair. My favorite was an "Inventor's Workshop" I put on for an elementary school one winter. Talk about fertile minds! Or, the Engineering Challenge where the grade 4/5 teams·designed and built scale model race cars and all the top prizes went to the girls.
· peterz, I have had very much sucess at Amazon.con for the Mims books. I still have my origional from 1970 or so. Look at books catagory, search for "Forrest Mims III". I had 120+ hits on new and used books. The 6 or so I bought used came practly in new condition, with great discounts. I have no idea why anyone would sell these items, I will have then till I die.· I have retired my origional, and replaced it with the "Getting started in electroincs" for about $14.00. (Amasing how they yellow over time) In the small town I drew up in (<2000) it was a godsend in the 70s for learning the basics, as no one I knew cared a whit about electronic anything·.
SRLM said...
From a student standpoint, my old high school just started a robotics program for credit and after school. It got about $75,000 dollars in funding to participate in the FIRST contest. Out of about 250 regular students in the school, about 5 choose to sign up. Unfortunately, I graduated last summer [noparse]:([/noparse]
Anyway, here at college, everyone seems amazed at the slightest hint of electronics. I offer to loan out my Parallax Books, but nobody has seriously taken it up yet... I guess I going solo.
dude ·my school has competed in the first vex challenge 3 years now and this year we are competing in the first tech chellenge
we too are suffering from low enrollment
i completely understand the book theory
i have lots of robotics books in my personal collection most of them are old colledge textbooks from my teacher from when he cleaned out the back room i have in the range of 50 to 75 books and i use every single one of them multiple at a time to be exact it helps to have cross references
the old college books seem to be of intermediate to advanced range they are perfect and the have a lot of good information they are even good for begginnners
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Parallax posesses power beyond belief.
There aren't too many of us at one place, though nationally there must be a critical mass. Otherwise, how could companies like Parallax exist and even prosper?
I play around with microcontrollers & build MAME arcade systems for fun. It's a lot less stressful that my lifestyle as a pediatrician.
I walked out of my garage one night with a blinking circuit board in my hand (testing range on and XBEE module). The neighbor saw it and said "is that a phone?" I replied, "no its a radio-modem for an electronic project I'm building." He said "thats INT-ER-ESTING" but what he really meant was "Wow, you're a weirdo"
It's like the software nerds of the early 80s, now they run everything. I'm positive about our future even though this appears to be a nadir for electronic enthusiasts. (One thing that can keep our hobby narrow is the move to SMD) In the end, its up to people like us to nurture and mentor young people and get them interested in electronics and micros. That is happening some with the robotic clubs in high schools and colleges.
Musical Instrument: Classical & Flamenco Guitar (everyone seems to be adding this)
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Thomas Talbot, MD
Gunpowder, MD, USA
I'm still somewhat in a 'new generation' context, a college student myself. My interest that got into the area was customization. Always wanting to mod things, make them work efficient for my purpose, or just to be something different, in the spirit of eccentricity. I've had my own huff and puffing over 'target audience engineering/design' that ignores individuals, utility and efficiency for profit. thats another story =3. I've been stalking the various electronics forums for lack of other places to go myself.
I've spent over a few hundred dollars im quite embarrassed to admit in trying to make a simple project work- just because i dont like to give up. I've spent over 75 hours now trying to get 2 picaxes to communicate serially, which seemed elementary in explanation, but they just wont work. So far i've put it off as a possible anomaly within the chip, maybe an offset clock or something since the other simple commands i'm using are working fine. I've been at a loss since no retail outlets or otherwise 'irl' locations have any inventory, support, or even knowledge of the 'simple electronics' area. As for books I dont spend much time in Libraries, however I have a good handful of GB in .pdf textbooks and reference manuals (in lack of them appearing anywhere else =/ - thank you internet ^^)
I've got many ideas on the new growing generations, many of which i dub the 'entitlement generation' since they feel they are entitled to the world on a silver platter. no consequences, no effort. But I feel that the thing we need the most is community based clubs, bigger than school-based, but locally based that can tend to the various levels of skill and lack of amounts of interested individuals.
Although I regret to say I dont read much, I wish I had the time to do so, but studying for engineering is extremely time-intensive with the lack of efficiency in many school systems (or maybe just America) these days.
Anyways just wanted to put down my schpeal and say that there are a small few of us in the 'younger' generation with interest. (and as for girls, i think its an attitudal difference. they seem to not really care about anything technical or broad-minded, in general. )
( PS: we need more kits! - I still cant find one starter electronics parts kit and i've been looking for ages)
Try the Basic Stamp 2: it's no problem to set up a serial communication scheme...
I went to Barnes and Noble today to buy a gift for my cousin, and while there I thought I'd browse the electronics section... No electronics, or even anything engineering related! It's been replaced with books on computer languages and apple iphones...
Thanks SRLM, I'll try that. I've also noticed with how much i've been trying to find picaxe examples and projects, they seem to be extremely scarce. tons of arduino support and examples, but im trying some elementary stuff just trying to get started...*ahem* with a wireless weather station. =D
A collection of simple processes i should say.
Although I got the picaxe to ideally do handfuls of small, simple projects, I think one larger, more capable chip- like that stamp thar, may be better off learning and prototyping with.
The Basic Stamp has lots of educational material, and even a book dedicated to "earth measurements". Parallax sells (and offers BS2 sample code) for sensors that can measure temperature and humidity, and the various "stamps in class" series of books has samples for reading water level and windspeed (I'm fairly certain on windspeed).
A focus on earth measurements sounds like it'll fit me like a glove then. ^^ i'm currently a Mechanical Engineering college student - getting my hands dirty while i learn, specifically for the focus of sustainable energy/living. I'll be sure to check it out, thanks! =D
I was just considering making a thread like this before this one was jumped back up... great minds and all.
I'd consider myself part of the "newer" electronics generation. I'm fairly young (29) and I grew up part of the video game/tv era
although I still consider electronics and robotics to be a passion (although one I don't fully understand) but I'm mostly uneducated
by today's standards.
So perhaps I can offer a unique point of view into the whole "getting into electronics" thing.
One of the biggest problems for me to overcome was lack of detailed explanation of topics available... especially on the 'net.
It's all very good to know that X is the best kind of diode for the situation, or that Y is better for this or that... but there's nothing
out there that really explains WHY without either glossing over all the information or going into details so deep that you lose
focus on the original question.
Electronics, at its very basics, is simple. Not every project has to be rocket science and not every question has to be
answered by a physics lesson. Teach me the why in a way I can understand, then later, if I need them, explain the details.
That's why Parallax's products, and the other Parallax-related sources (this forum, Nuts and Volts articles, ect) are such a
huge help to people like me who don't know the difference between a PNP or NPN transistor and don't have the money to
pay for lessons to find out.
In case anyone is still reading after that rant... I started out at 5 years old on a radioshack electronics kit too.
Oh... I've been attempting to teach myself the guitar for the past 4 years. I think its the overwelming creative urge that drives
people like us to electronics and other such hobbies.
How about "Texting" with a cell phone!
I find it hard to understand why One would type when You have a phone in Your hand?
But, I'm Buying up all the Morris code keys I can find for the next Tech-no break through!
We live in Alturas Fl. Population 1200,My son rides the bus 20 miles to Bartow where He goes to school at.He has a Electronics class and the price of Tubes is about to break Me.
We probably have the smallest TV around, A 47" LCD
No Library or book store,But You can get the latest farmers almanac at the feed store!
I've not finished this excellent thread yet, but I have a few things to say:
Here in PDX Oregon, we do have Powells Technical Bookstore. It's a whole freaking book store, just for tech titles! All the diciplines are well covered, and you can still get a lot of older tech books too. I go there often to just browse and see what might interest me. Along the walls, they've got lots of old tech. Sadly, lots of the tech we grew up on is now there. Not so sadly, it's still relevant --at least I think it's relevant. Those early things I learned in the early 80's still prove quite useful.
There is a fairly active set of people here. Several clubs, and a few schools that focus on electro-mechanical engineering skills. I think Portland is one of the more well read cities, and Powells is probably part of that. Maybe it's the politics. The water? Who knows!
Anyway, there are people our age showing kids stuff. I spent time last week with a high-schooler working through basic DC circuits in his physics course. I was very pleased that was considered part of physics. It so often just isn't. I've shown a few of his friends about discrete numbers, and binary math. When I was in H.S. we had a coupla teachers who helped us learn things. Basically, they went and got books, we consumed them, then tried stuff, but it was better than nothing. By the time most of us were 16, we could do math in binary, hex, octal and ordinary base 10 decimal.
One thing that has struck me was we went through a time where tech didn't seem as accessable. Computers were powerful enough, but doing things with micros was complex. At least that's how it seemed to me at the time. I would have loved to have an 8bitter, besides the Atari, CoCo, or C64 to continue to bang around on. For the most part, I did as I kept the Atari machine, but somehow it was seen as old, and not relevant. In retrospect, that was not true!
I think what happened was there was a great personal computing tech escalation that made many people just users. And that's fine actually. We have really great tools available to us. And they are extremely cheap. $1k can buy so much computing power it's not even funny. With that came easy and fast and the gratification bit a few have mentioned. I agree with this.
There is something else I see moving in our favor. Clearly the politics of the time and our economic situation have had their impact. Now, innovation is needed and fuel costs and other variables have diminished the advantages to leveraging overseas resources. Made in your country of origin is slowly becoming a more valuable thing as people see what happens when they send their innovation away, in return for cheaper stuff! (gotta get the money to buy that stuff from somewhere, right?)
A lot of movement away from being independent, coupled with fear, hard economic times and other things brought us here, in combination with the other stuff I mentioned. I think that's changing slowly. For many years running, no younger person would entertain any conversation on any topic that we would find fun. Today some of them are! I've given away some of my hardware, and have watched them do stuff with it.
Finding Parallax really was an eye opener, for all the great reasons so often mentioned. For me personally, I'm doing stuff again, and I'm having a great time of it. One thing that disturbs me is I do run into many who will say "they are just an educational company", or that "real engineers use all of this very specific purpose, closed up, and cheap a** Smile. Why? I've done tons of work with product design companies and product design people. It's the whole solution that matters. If one chip, for example, can replace three, but for some software, leaving costs same or lower, it's viable and could be a differentiator, and those are golden, so why put it off the table?
The most common answer I get is inertia. "We've always done that, or "that is what Bob does and he's been here the longest".
IMHO, that's gonna change. There are some up and coming forces and people and tech, and I believe the Propeller is a part of that, that will open some new doors. Those of us interested and here right now, may well find our skills relevant to a degree they were not just 10 years ago.
Comments
Ken Gracey
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Think Inside the box first and if that doesn't work..
Re-arrange what's inside the box then...
Think outside the BOX!
Yeah, now I remember discovering that running the kit off the output of my model railway power supply was generally no good but it did make the organ project into a weird sounding synthesizer. Thus I learned about smoothing and regulating power supplies !
Kept the LDR and transistors, including ancient OC71, for about 15 years.
Ahh, those were the days. When toy shops were full of Meccano, electronics kits, chemistry sets... what happened?
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For me, the past is not over yet.
Post Edited (heater) : 11/4/2008 9:00:46 AM GMT
But I don't think mine had an OC71 - it had strange little plastic transistors (possibly X09 package) mounted on squares of SRBP.
I hope the "LEGO sets... much less creativity :-(" is an unfortunate arrangement of words and not your real sentiment [noparse]:)[/noparse].
I think a lot of the reason for reduced presence in bookstores is because of increases presence on the internet. Why go to a bookstore when much of the content is already available for free. And if you really want a book, Amazon (or others) will get it to you in two days (if you can't download it (e.g., oreilly.com). Most of the people buying these books are probably already interested in the material and know how to find it.
Of course, this does not solve the problem of attracting new people - people who might just stumble across things in the bookstore. The number of these kinds of books on the shelves waxes and wanes over time. The last time I looked in Borders, there were quite a few of the "Evil Scientist" type books. Maybe not a whole lot of others, though.
As far as magazines go, they do carry Make, Servo, and Nuts and Volts. I think they carry Circuit Cellar, too. These are all great magazines for attracting new people (although Circuit Cellar is probably over the head of most new people now). I don't know how many people actually buy these magazines - I've never seen anyone buy one. I subscribe to all of these (CC since issue 5, but I have the official photocopy of the first issues) so I'm not contributing to letting Borders know they are popular.
My start in electronics was with kits similar to those described above and others from Radio Shack. And lots of bells, buzzers, light bulbs, switches, and batteries.
I had a TRS-80 Model I. It had a number of things I made attached through the exposed bus - speech synthesis, video (*), random i/o stuff. It was a great way to learn both programming and hardware. At that time, using a computer was much different from today. Today, people know how to use a computer (office apps, games, etc.) but it's a completely different experience.
Microcontrollers today are able to give much of the same experience that a lot of us got earlier with computers. A computer with a few K of memory (maybe up to 64 [noparse]:)[/noparse] ) then is not much different from many microcontrollers today. So, the tools are certainly there. It's just a matter of letting people know they are around and figuring out how to get them involved.
Unfortunately, that's the part I don't know how to do. I think robotics is probably the most visible path. It's probably too late to interest a lot of kids by the time they are teenagers. Maybe it's parents of younger children that need to be interested in this stuff. Imagine growing up with a parent that spends time fiddling with hardware at this level. It's got to have some influence on the kids.
(*) Including a box built around the sprite-based video chip from a TI 99/4A computer and based on a design by Steve Ciarcia in Byte magazine (when Byte was good and before Circuit Cellar became its own magazine).
Here in the USA we had "Meccano" circa 1930's. Later it was renamed "Erector" or "Erector Sets". They were all made by the A. C. Gilbert Company who also sold chemistry sets, biology lab sets, and who knows what else.
With a little imagination and by adding in a few household cleaning products to the chemistry set you could set up quite a smoke screen - one any Hollywood special effects guy would be proud of!
They even exist today, here, having been bought out some years back by Brio:
http://www.erectorusa.com/
Ah, the memories!
Regards,
Bruce Bates
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When all else fails, try inserting a new battery.
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For me, the past is not over yet.
My start happened as a result of my dad. He and I put together (at the age of about 7-8) a DIY boat. It was simple. Plastic hull, balsa wood deck, and I wound the motor myself. It was powered by one D-cell battery. I still remember playing with that thing in the tub.
Later, my dad bought me the attached kit. I still have it, and look at it regularly. I doesn't have any of the bits (though I know I have a few laying around) anymore. I only went so far with that one, as it quickly went over my head at the age of 7-8.
Later, in late high school, I got back into electronics. Bought myself a tackle box (which I still have and use today for the same thing), all the Forrest Mim's books I could find at the Shack, and a number of descreet components I didn't completely understand (555 timer for one, 741 for another). I only got so far with that stuff again, and ended up becoming a Mechanical Engineer instead.
College didn't help me either. EE class was a joke.
Not until I found a reason to get back into this hobby did I start back up into it again (third time is a charm). This time, it has stuck. Much of that is due to the internet and forums such as this one.
I have never really considered myself as part of the masses. It's not easy to find another person with this same passion. Since we isolate ourselves in our little caves, we don't get out too often to actually see and meet other nerds. Even being surrounded by nerds at work, most of them don't do much more than play Halo and watch American Idol. So, yes, even among our bretheren, we are isolated.
So, it doesn't surprise me that there aren't more books available to us. It'd be cool if Parallax were to link to, or provide said books (do they now?). I'm still trying to find my Mim's books, I'd just buy them all over again, if I could easily and cheaply.
-Parsko
www.forrestmims.com
I think maybe the book peterz mentioned earlier is "Getting Started in Electronics". This was the first electronics book I ever bought and I still have my original copy. The "Engineer's Mini Notebook" series of books is now combined together and reprinted as a four volume set.
Mr. Mims also has another interesting site at www.forrestmims.org.
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- Rick
http://www.mcmelectronics.com/product/80-5015··· Crystal Radio Kit
http://www.mcmelectronics.com/product/80-5030··· 75 in 1 Electronic Project Lab
http://www.mcmelectronics.com/product/80-5035··· 130 in 1 Electronic Project Lab
http://www.mcmelectronics.com/product/80-5040··· 130 in 1 Electronic Project Lab
http://www.mcmelectronics.com/product/80-5045··· 300 in 1 Electronic Project Lab
http://www.mcmelectronics.com/product/80-5050··· 500 in 1 Electronic Project Lab
Disclosure: I am not affiliated with MCM Electronics or ELENCO Electronics, the maker of the above kits. I just found these in the same place at good prices in case anyone thinks these might make a great gift for a young person.
These lab kits still represent one of the best ways to generate interest·in electronics and insures the successes that keep them interested.
Duffer
They got me interested and I would suggest them to anyone.
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The pessimist is never disappointed.
When I got mine ( I was probably 9 or 10) it wasn't quite what I expected, but there were some really cool concepts with this kit.
·
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Beau Schwabe
IC Layout Engineer
Parallax, Inc.
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Pi Guy
··· I got started like many of you with Popular Electronics magazine( 1964, I think), Meccano sets, switches wires and all. I was lucky enough to have a high school with a Technical Academic program; lucky enough to go to a technical College then a good engineering school. More than that, I always was surrounded by people who didn't mind getting into a project and getting their hands dirty.
·· Where are the next bunch of electronics hobbiests coming from? While I'm not all that involved in robotics, it seems to have captured the imagination of many up and coming folks. Hopefully some fraction of them will persevere past just getting a new toy and delve into the theory and principles of the motors, gears, sensors and communication used on today's robots.
·· Books and publications have always interested me and I echo some of the comments re Borders, B&N, etc. But, knowing something about the publishing business, low volume paper books are going to continue to decline in availability. On a positive note, the self-publish and book-on-demand is coming ever closer to critical mass. Just Google "self-publishing books".
·· As has been noted, there are kids of both genders who would absolutely love for any technical person to come talk to their grade school or help with science fair. My favorite was an "Inventor's Workshop" I put on for an elementary school one winter. Talk about fertile minds! Or, the Engineering Challenge where the grade 4/5 teams·designed and built scale model race cars and all the top prizes went to the girls.
Cheers,
··
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Tom Sisk
http://www.siskconsult.com
·
·Hope this helps, John
·my school has competed in the first vex challenge 3 years now and this year we are competing in the first tech chellenge
we too are suffering from low enrollment
i completely understand the book theory
i have lots of robotics books in my personal collection most of them are old colledge textbooks from my teacher from when he cleaned out the back room i have in the range of 50 to 75 books and i use every single one of them multiple at a time to be exact it helps to have cross references
the old college books seem to be of intermediate to advanced range they are perfect and the have a lot of good information they are even good for begginnners
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Parallax posesses power beyond belief.
Believe in it.
I play around with microcontrollers & build MAME arcade systems for fun. It's a lot less stressful that my lifestyle as a pediatrician.
I walked out of my garage one night with a blinking circuit board in my hand (testing range on and XBEE module). The neighbor saw it and said "is that a phone?" I replied, "no its a radio-modem for an electronic project I'm building." He said "thats INT-ER-ESTING" but what he really meant was "Wow, you're a weirdo"
It's like the software nerds of the early 80s, now they run everything. I'm positive about our future even though this appears to be a nadir for electronic enthusiasts. (One thing that can keep our hobby narrow is the move to SMD) In the end, its up to people like us to nurture and mentor young people and get them interested in electronics and micros. That is happening some with the robotic clubs in high schools and colleges.
Musical Instrument: Classical & Flamenco Guitar (everyone seems to be adding this)
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Thomas Talbot, MD
Gunpowder, MD, USA
I had that exact 150 in one kit as a kid and it sure brought back some memories to see that photo again.
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Thomas Talbot, MD
Gunpowder, MD, USA
I've spent over a few hundred dollars im quite embarrassed to admit in trying to make a simple project work- just because i dont like to give up. I've spent over 75 hours now trying to get 2 picaxes to communicate serially, which seemed elementary in explanation, but they just wont work. So far i've put it off as a possible anomaly within the chip, maybe an offset clock or something since the other simple commands i'm using are working fine. I've been at a loss since no retail outlets or otherwise 'irl' locations have any inventory, support, or even knowledge of the 'simple electronics' area. As for books I dont spend much time in Libraries, however I have a good handful of GB in .pdf textbooks and reference manuals (in lack of them appearing anywhere else =/ - thank you internet ^^)
I've got many ideas on the new growing generations, many of which i dub the 'entitlement generation' since they feel they are entitled to the world on a silver platter. no consequences, no effort. But I feel that the thing we need the most is community based clubs, bigger than school-based, but locally based that can tend to the various levels of skill and lack of amounts of interested individuals.
Although I regret to say I dont read much, I wish I had the time to do so, but studying for engineering is extremely time-intensive with the lack of efficiency in many school systems (or maybe just America) these days.
Anyways just wanted to put down my schpeal and say that there are a small few of us in the 'younger' generation with interest. (and as for girls, i think its an attitudal difference. they seem to not really care about anything technical or broad-minded, in general. )
( PS: we need more kits! - I still cant find one starter electronics parts kit and i've been looking for ages)
Try the Basic Stamp 2: it's no problem to set up a serial communication scheme...
I went to Barnes and Noble today to buy a gift for my cousin, and while there I thought I'd browse the electronics section... No electronics, or even anything engineering related! It's been replaced with books on computer languages and apple iphones...
A collection of simple processes i should say.
Although I got the picaxe to ideally do handfuls of small, simple projects, I think one larger, more capable chip- like that stamp thar, may be better off learning and prototyping with.
Are you aware of Baynesville Electronics in Towson? It's a real, old-fashioned, electronics store.
Mike
I'd consider myself part of the "newer" electronics generation. I'm fairly young (29) and I grew up part of the video game/tv era
although I still consider electronics and robotics to be a passion (although one I don't fully understand) but I'm mostly uneducated
by today's standards.
So perhaps I can offer a unique point of view into the whole "getting into electronics" thing.
One of the biggest problems for me to overcome was lack of detailed explanation of topics available... especially on the 'net.
It's all very good to know that X is the best kind of diode for the situation, or that Y is better for this or that... but there's nothing
out there that really explains WHY without either glossing over all the information or going into details so deep that you lose
focus on the original question.
Electronics, at its very basics, is simple. Not every project has to be rocket science and not every question has to be
answered by a physics lesson. Teach me the why in a way I can understand, then later, if I need them, explain the details.
That's why Parallax's products, and the other Parallax-related sources (this forum, Nuts and Volts articles, ect) are such a
huge help to people like me who don't know the difference between a PNP or NPN transistor and don't have the money to
pay for lessons to find out.
In case anyone is still reading after that rant... I started out at 5 years old on a radioshack electronics kit too.
Oh... I've been attempting to teach myself the guitar for the past 4 years. I think its the overwelming creative urge that drives
people like us to electronics and other such hobbies.
I find it hard to understand why One would type when You have a phone in Your hand?
But, I'm Buying up all the Morris code keys I can find for the next Tech-no break through!
We live in Alturas Fl. Population 1200,My son rides the bus 20 miles to Bartow where He goes to school at.He has a Electronics class and the price of Tubes is about to break Me.
We probably have the smallest TV around, A 47" LCD
No Library or book store,But You can get the latest farmers almanac at the feed store!
_____________$WMc%______Merry Xmas
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The Truth is out there
Here in PDX Oregon, we do have Powells Technical Bookstore. It's a whole freaking book store, just for tech titles! All the diciplines are well covered, and you can still get a lot of older tech books too. I go there often to just browse and see what might interest me. Along the walls, they've got lots of old tech. Sadly, lots of the tech we grew up on is now there. Not so sadly, it's still relevant --at least I think it's relevant. Those early things I learned in the early 80's still prove quite useful.
There is a fairly active set of people here. Several clubs, and a few schools that focus on electro-mechanical engineering skills. I think Portland is one of the more well read cities, and Powells is probably part of that. Maybe it's the politics. The water? Who knows!
Anyway, there are people our age showing kids stuff. I spent time last week with a high-schooler working through basic DC circuits in his physics course. I was very pleased that was considered part of physics. It so often just isn't. I've shown a few of his friends about discrete numbers, and binary math. When I was in H.S. we had a coupla teachers who helped us learn things. Basically, they went and got books, we consumed them, then tried stuff, but it was better than nothing. By the time most of us were 16, we could do math in binary, hex, octal and ordinary base 10 decimal.
One thing that has struck me was we went through a time where tech didn't seem as accessable. Computers were powerful enough, but doing things with micros was complex. At least that's how it seemed to me at the time. I would have loved to have an 8bitter, besides the Atari, CoCo, or C64 to continue to bang around on. For the most part, I did as I kept the Atari machine, but somehow it was seen as old, and not relevant. In retrospect, that was not true!
I think what happened was there was a great personal computing tech escalation that made many people just users. And that's fine actually. We have really great tools available to us. And they are extremely cheap. $1k can buy so much computing power it's not even funny. With that came easy and fast and the gratification bit a few have mentioned. I agree with this.
There is something else I see moving in our favor. Clearly the politics of the time and our economic situation have had their impact. Now, innovation is needed and fuel costs and other variables have diminished the advantages to leveraging overseas resources. Made in your country of origin is slowly becoming a more valuable thing as people see what happens when they send their innovation away, in return for cheaper stuff! (gotta get the money to buy that stuff from somewhere, right?)
A lot of movement away from being independent, coupled with fear, hard economic times and other things brought us here, in combination with the other stuff I mentioned. I think that's changing slowly. For many years running, no younger person would entertain any conversation on any topic that we would find fun. Today some of them are! I've given away some of my hardware, and have watched them do stuff with it.
Finding Parallax really was an eye opener, for all the great reasons so often mentioned. For me personally, I'm doing stuff again, and I'm having a great time of it. One thing that disturbs me is I do run into many who will say "they are just an educational company", or that "real engineers use all of this very specific purpose, closed up, and cheap a** Smile. Why? I've done tons of work with product design companies and product design people. It's the whole solution that matters. If one chip, for example, can replace three, but for some software, leaving costs same or lower, it's viable and could be a differentiator, and those are golden, so why put it off the table?
The most common answer I get is inertia. "We've always done that, or "that is what Bob does and he's been here the longest".
IMHO, that's gonna change. There are some up and coming forces and people and tech, and I believe the Propeller is a part of that, that will open some new doors. Those of us interested and here right now, may well find our skills relevant to a degree they were not just 10 years ago.
(goes off to read the rest of the thoughts here)
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