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  • Author Author: spannerspencer
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Father's Day Badge-a-Thon: Quality Time King

spannerspencer

Adaptability is the cornerstone of fatherhood. Well, it probably should be. Whether it is or not, I'll leave for mothers and partners to decide upon!image

 

But, in an effort to embrace this notion, today's Father's Day badge has taken a twist. I've adjusted it in accord with some excellent suggestions you guys about creating projects with the kids.

 

"Did anyone else see the title and expect that it'd be "what toys have you made for your boys (or girls)". That's what being a dad's really all about," astutely pointed out, which agreed with.

 

"Perhaps one of the future days will cover Projects on the Dads To Do List," he says. "Cool things like Retro Arcade System, Club house, Doll house and of course expanding the body disposal area for when your girls reach the teen years and you need to get rid of "problems" ;-)"

 

So, other than undetectable methods of dissolving the tormented remains of your daughter's boyfriend in industrial chemicals, tell us about any projects, games, kits or other activities your parents made with you (all those long years ago) that got you into electronics, so we can take some inspiration for enthusing future generations.

 

  • Tell us all about them in the comments below, and maybe include a few photos to really help us set that nostalgic mood!
  • @mention another element14 member in your comment, and nominate them to post their parental project story.

 

And remember you'll need to already have the previous Father's Day badges in order to be crowned a Quality Time King.

Top Comments

Parents

  • I think my story will probably be similar to some others - my parents never really had skills in electronics and only had the slightest interest. I really have my teachers, and the local electronics shop (since defunct) to credit for getting me started along this path - which I had blogged about in the past.

     

    I got into some repair mainly because of my thriftiness, and had some opportunities because of the teachers who trusted me and gave me some of their time and access to some of the stuff they had so I could take them home and have a play with them too. Nothing really went to waste, and a silly habit of keeping things (broken and functional) "just in case" developed because of that.

     

    I suppose the one thing I see is that it's getting easier to get into the "maker" space with lots of "enabling" platforms, but the nature of electronics has changed. Less of it is about playing with analogue electronics - e.g. good ol' 555 timer style stuff, and much more of it is microcontroller based instead with "plug in" modules and "libraries" to make things easy to "glue" bits together. But in doing so, I think lots of people missed out on the basic skills of soldering and basic analogue electronics you need to make those real-world interfaces to meet your particular needs, rather than getting something off the shelf.

     

    I suppose my story has some similarities to in the sense that it was very much an "independent" adventure, enabled by my parents (primarily financially), but not so much guided or facilitated by them. They couldn't teach me how to solder, and they wouldn't know what an Opamp was.

     

    - Gough

Comment

  • I think my story will probably be similar to some others - my parents never really had skills in electronics and only had the slightest interest. I really have my teachers, and the local electronics shop (since defunct) to credit for getting me started along this path - which I had blogged about in the past.

     

    I got into some repair mainly because of my thriftiness, and had some opportunities because of the teachers who trusted me and gave me some of their time and access to some of the stuff they had so I could take them home and have a play with them too. Nothing really went to waste, and a silly habit of keeping things (broken and functional) "just in case" developed because of that.

     

    I suppose the one thing I see is that it's getting easier to get into the "maker" space with lots of "enabling" platforms, but the nature of electronics has changed. Less of it is about playing with analogue electronics - e.g. good ol' 555 timer style stuff, and much more of it is microcontroller based instead with "plug in" modules and "libraries" to make things easy to "glue" bits together. But in doing so, I think lots of people missed out on the basic skills of soldering and basic analogue electronics you need to make those real-world interfaces to meet your particular needs, rather than getting something off the shelf.

     

    I suppose my story has some similarities to in the sense that it was very much an "independent" adventure, enabled by my parents (primarily financially), but not so much guided or facilitated by them. They couldn't teach me how to solder, and they wouldn't know what an Opamp was.

     

    - Gough

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