I taught few graduate students from City College of New York on basic analog electronics. The lecture began with general overview of open hardware movement and lead into explaining what exactly is electricity. And I went on to explain electrical symbols and various parts that complete a circuit. The lecture is uploaded here.
Second part was on learning to solder and to use breadboard. The first step into using breadboard is quiet confusing, but once people get a hang of it, it’s a breeze. We made NOT gate (Inverter) using NPN transistor and made NAND gate using two transistors. We went ambitious and made relaxation oscillator using NPN and PNP transistor. It is alot to understand at the first breath, but people learn best by doing and failing. Yes, there were few smoke and incidents. Thankfully no one is seriously injured. When teaching electronics for the first time, it is never enough to make safety the priority.
Tomorrow, we will make more complex NAND oscillator using Schmitt Trigger Quad NAND gate IC, and then introduce various sensors such as photoresistor and flex sensor. That information is in the slide above.
We will pause with analog circuits there and go into Arduino. Yes, the world of microprocessors and coding is always fun, and also difficult to teach. Time to sleep. good night.
Some of the pictures are taken by Ahrong Han. I will lead another workshop at 56 Bogart Street studio of Ahrong and Eroon Kang mid December. The workshop will be about motors, actuators, and sensors in tandem with arduino. Ping me if you want to come, free as in free beer.