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

RE: Father's Day Badge-a-Thon: Quality Time King

ipv1 — Wed, 29 Jun 2016 20:02:54 GMT

Just logged in after a while and looks like ive missed out on a lot. I have been spending some vacation time with the family and me and my wife were discussion how crazy it is with a new born and both of us working full time jobs and other activities and how we managed to juggle design challenges last year.

Ive personally seen a few more of my hair turn grey in the past month and with little or no sleep hanging on to sanity by our fingertips, I have come to a conclusion... we are biologically programmed to focus on our kids. When I see my son giggle as he wakes up to my face in the morning, I don't need sleep anymore.

Long story short- I feel my son "is and always will be my greatest creation". Watching him grow up should be an experience like none other and I can only hope to make something together as he does.

During the pregnancy we made a kick sensor with the CC3200 to measure foetal movement and after birth we made a nappy wetness sensor to turn on the lights when the diaper needed changing.

[View:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mv-QFkmHP7w:440:330]

RE: Father's Day Badge-a-Thon: Quality Time King

pettitda — Wed, 22 Jun 2016 19:52:37 GMT

My first electronics project was a crystal radio set built from plans from the October 1986 issue of Radio-Electronics. My father made the base and drilled the holes and I wound the coils onto the forms. I wish I still had this lying around somewhere.

[View:/resized-image/__size/650x888/__key/commentfiles/f7d226abd59f475c9d224a79e3f0ec07-be274f32-8acc-4384-b4f1-1d1b447662cd/contentimage_5F00_181599.png:650:888]

I'll tag [mention:030052a2defd4db5905e641faba08f52:e9ed411860ed4f2ba0265705b8793d05], you're it!

RE: Father's Day Badge-a-Thon: Quality Time King

clem57 — Mon, 20 Jun 2016 14:05:01 GMT

I guess my father started my in electronics when he brought home an electric transformer (high voltage) with antenna like a TV. He turned off the lights and warned me to stay back. When he turned it on a spark ran up the antenna and went zap just like old monster movies. From then I could not get enough. Later I got for Christmas this kit:

I think the most fun parts was the solar panel and meter in the front. At the bottom was a buzzer, lamp/light, key tap, and variable resistor (knob for a kid). This came in a nice wooden box (durable for a boy like me). I did have a lot of fun with the wires and springs. I guess this was my first breadboard[View:/resized-image/__size/16x16/__key/commentfiles/f7d226abd59f475c9d224a79e3f0ec07-be274f32-8acc-4384-b4f1-1d1b447662cd/7848.contentimage_5F00_938.png:16:16]. I wonder where this went after I grew up.[View:/resized-image/__size/620x315/__key/commentfiles/f7d226abd59f475c9d224a79e3f0ec07-be274f32-8acc-4384-b4f1-1d1b447662cd/5466.contentimage_5F00_181598.png:620:315]

Clem

Tag [mention:6e474abc33b64a82aa78c9813503c962:e9ed411860ed4f2ba0265705b8793d05], your next!

RE: Father's Day Badge-a-Thon: Quality Time King

bobpombrio — Sun, 19 Jun 2016 22:52:13 GMT

Back in the 70's when I was still home my dad was building one of the Heath Kit TV's. I started doing the lessons with him and since my solder work was better than his he got me to do some of the boards. That is what got me interested in electronics, I was already helping my buddies build and race cars and this was just one more hobbie I picked up.

RE: Father's Day Badge-a-Thon: Quality Time King

balearicdynamics — Sun, 19 Jun 2016 20:50:25 GMT

I remember clearly when I moved from mechanics to electronics (... maybe considered electronics?). I was about 10-11 y.o. When I was sick at home I was almost the day alone or with my grandpa. A very tolerant grandpa [View:/resized-image/__size/16x16/__key/commentfiles/f7d226abd59f475c9d224a79e3f0ec07-be274f32-8acc-4384-b4f1-1d1b447662cd/4762.contentimage_5F00_1.png:16:16]

Starting from I was able to keep in my hands a screwdriver I enjoyed so much disassembling home clocks. Any kind of broken or perfectly working clocks. The result in the best cases was the one shown in the image below...

[View:/resized-image/__size/262x197/__key/commentfiles/f7d226abd59f475c9d224a79e3f0ec07-be274f32-8acc-4384-b4f1-1d1b447662cd/contentimage_5F00_181596.jpg:262:197]

... but the worst case was when the springs exploded and all the gears was somewhere around [View:/resized-image/__size/16x16/__key/commentfiles/f7d226abd59f475c9d224a79e3f0ec07-be274f32-8acc-4384-b4f1-1d1b447662cd/contentimage_5F00_2.png:16:16]

The next step I moved with a tape player/recorder I owned. For a while - some months - I enjoyed hear music and record any thing: sounds, music, my voice ... Then I discovered that also this "electronic" device was assembled with screws. And it was the last time I remember I heard something with this recorder.

[View:/resized-image/__size/800x600/__key/commentfiles/f7d226abd59f475c9d224a79e3f0ec07-be274f32-8acc-4384-b4f1-1d1b447662cd/contentimage_5F00_181597.jpg:800:600]

Was incredibly exciting for me open - many many times - and disassemble the player then see what was happening inside while running. Unfortunately the screwdriver also worked with the tape head alignment, probably this was the reason that the sound quality progressively degraded until just noise ... I also remember the incredible effect you get when your screwdriver touch one of the two poles of the 220V power supply (only one...). The lesson I learned in this period was to avoid to try what happens rotating screws with some red painted on them...

BTW I'd like to see what [mention:f626ec6632bf4940b82546070d592fcc:e9ed411860ed4f2ba0265705b8793d05] can share with us...

RE: Father's Day Badge-a-Thon: Quality Time King

COMPACT — Sun, 19 Jun 2016 04:59:04 GMT

My Dad used to help me with making pinball machines.

I wonder if Jamil.Ispahany will add a post.

RE: Father's Day Badge-a-Thon: Quality Time King

Robert Peter Oakes — Sun, 19 Jun 2016 01:14:12 GMT

two years ago I had my daughter fully involved with creating my prize winning entry for the Internet of Holiday Lights and it was great fun. She also made the Baby Bob Minion that we wired up to be included. and as you can see, she had secretly been making me a pile of Minions, one representing each member of the Family... now that's quality time [View:/resized-image/__size/16x16/__key/commentfiles/f7d226abd59f475c9d224a79e3f0ec07-be274f32-8acc-4384-b4f1-1d1b447662cd/contentimage_5F00_1.png:16:16]. I know at the same time as I was working on my project. [mention:b60dcf9c31a8492ea6badbcc611934d0:e9ed411860ed4f2ba0265705b8793d05] was franticly working with wife and Daughter on their Christmas Entry... another fine example of good fatherly parenting.

[View:https://players.brightcove.net/1362235890001/NkxiVJdjx_default/index.html?videoId=3981273516001:740:466][View:https://players.brightcove.net/1362235890001/NkxiVJdjx_default/index.html?videoId=4006450989001:740:466][View:https://players.brightcove.net/1362235890001/NkxiVJdjx_default/index.html?videoId=3966597372001:740:466]

RE: Father's Day Badge-a-Thon: Quality Time King

Workshopshed — Sat, 18 Jun 2016 20:40:57 GMT

Like [mention:58cda2521f80479d9fd9ea430c8c27d4:e9ed411860ed4f2ba0265705b8793d05] I got into electronics via a many in one project kit, my parents bought it for me one Christmas back in the 70s/80s. They also provided me with some magazines from the husband of one of my mother's work colleagues. I don't remember working through any of the projects with them but they usually got involved with the testing of various burglar alarms I made. I do remember working on a crystal growing experiment with my Mother as it involved hot water and dangerous chemicals I was not left alone with that. Mother also helped with the preparation of blood slides for viewing in a microscope.

My father was always repairing boats through my childhood so he showed me woodworking skills, tenacity and self learning.

I recently got a copy of "Maker Dad" by Mark Frauenfelder but we've yet to build anything from that. I believe I will be making a lemon drizzle cake with my daughter tomorrow.

RE: Father's Day Badge-a-Thon: Quality Time King

dougw — Sat, 18 Jun 2016 19:38:17 GMT

All of my kids like video games, even my daughter, who once had a job testing PSP games. I am in the process of collecting components to build a PiCade3: (inspired by the Pi3 retro arcade)

[View:/resized-image/__size/270x382/__key/commentfiles/f7d226abd59f475c9d224a79e3f0ec07-be274f32-8acc-4384-b4f1-1d1b447662cd/0412.contentimage_5F00_181592.png:270:382]

I don't think my path to be an electronics engineer follows many others. I had to decide whether to get an education of become a professional golfer. I chose education and wanted to be a mechanical engineer, but once in university, I quickly realized electronics was going to be a much lower cost hobby.

I would like to know stories about which of the members' jobs were the most technically interesting - maybe top members like [mention:b0bc65b9ecdc4307bd967592f00e340a:e9ed411860ed4f2ba0265705b8793d05] , [mention:a5312e9762dd4699ba5d3876da34ffe5:e9ed411860ed4f2ba0265705b8793d05] [mention:7bae85b773434136be789dfddf955641:e9ed411860ed4f2ba0265705b8793d05] have some interesting stories.

However, my tendency to be a builder/maker/hacker/hobbiest probably comes from my Dad, who made us some phenomenal toys. One of my favourites was a two-seater (front & back seating) fighter jet, suspended by 2 chains, one in front of each seat. There was a steering wheel on each chain that allowed the plane to be pumped in a trapezoidal swing motion. The suspension points were at the center of gravity, so the plane could be have roll, pitch and yaw as it swung, controlled by the steering wheels and body position. There were rocket launchers under the wings, fired by the pilot at targets in front of the plane. There were bomb bay doors in the fuselage - controlled by the co-pilot, to drop bombs on targets below the plane. There were buttons and lights and communication systems. We had to learn all the communication protocols. ("Pilot to Bombadier, prepare to open the bomb bay doors") We even had Morse code signal lights to communicate with the ground crew. It had retractable landing gear to stabilize the plane while boarding and deplaning. The 2 foot missiles launched with such dangerous velocity, they would be unthinkable in a commercial toy. Imagine a crossbow mechanism powered by slingshot elastics. It took hours of practice to be able to hit targets. He had us help build flotillas of naval vessels to shoot at. Actually the ships were for a different game, but they just "happened" to make good targets.

So hats off to Dads of Dads, who got us all started on this path.

RE: Father's Day Badge-a-Thon: Quality Time King

jw0752 — Sat, 18 Jun 2016 19:06:27 GMT

We all seem to have great similarities in our stories despite being spread out all over the world. Want a great commonality electronics has provided for us. Today I commented to my best friend (Wife) how lucky I have been to live in this age of technological expansion. I was designed to flourish in such an environment of technology. My nearsightedness that brings my normal focal point to a place 10 cm in front of my nose makes it perfect for working close on small electronic components. Health issues would have made my life rather short and miserable in an age less endowed with technology. In the past ages few people of my social economic status would even have the time or energy to devote to pursuits of leisure and hobbies like electronics. So I say thank you to the fates that put me here and now for a great and interesting life. I would rehash my beginnings and the sources of the inspirations from parents and supporters but as [mention:58cda2521f80479d9fd9ea430c8c27d4:e9ed411860ed4f2ba0265705b8793d05] has pointed out I have mentioned these things in several other postings. Happy Fathers day to all of you my friends who have been blessed/cursed with children and Thank you to all of our Dads who shouldered the curse of our own existences and made the world better for us.

John

RE: Father's Day Badge-a-Thon: Quality Time King

jkutzsch — Sat, 18 Jun 2016 18:12:33 GMT

It wasn't until I had joined the Marine Corps that I started to work with electronics. Back when you had to actually use individual chips to upgrade memory instead of the easy peasy can only fit one way upgrades available now. :-) Constantly upgrading and repairing military use equipment was a great introduction to showing how you can mod/repair items and not just buy a completely new item.

Interestingly enough my wife was actually introduced to electronics as a child since her Father believed in building his own computer and bought all the parts in kit form and she helped build it.

I am curious to hear how someone like [mention:4213431ead3d478ca6912bc23688f94c:e9ed411860ed4f2ba0265705b8793d05] was introduced to electronics. The Fine staff at Element 14 get such great opportunities to see new tech and play with old tech that SuperHero Origin stories would be interesting! ;-)

RE: Father's Day Badge-a-Thon: Quality Time King

the-dubster — Sat, 18 Jun 2016 17:16:22 GMT

Like many others, my interest in electronics didn't come from my parents, it was an uncle who bought me my first electronics kit, something like this - but without a 7 segment LED and IC amp - far too hi-tech for the 70's!! A family friend moved me onto my first solderless breadboard which I think I still have some 25 years later!

Fast forward a few years and my father came through, a local AV hire and repair shop used to provide him with all the TVs, VHS recorders and CD players that they deemed 'beyond economic repair', which as most of you know means either:

1. It's too old to bother with as a new item costs less and works better

2. The fault is that much of a pig that we've had enough of trying to fix it!

Up I grew, so did my collection of junk, I bought a house = more space to store that junk = more junk please

The local reference library was a veritable mine of useful information when it came to circuit diagrams for TV chassis et al, and photocopying the pages at 5p / sheet wasn't too bad either.

Even if it couldn't be fixed, these items contained a plethora of useful components that the careful application of a soldering iron and a solder 'pullit' would have removed and stored in no time, alas I gave that activity no time either . . .

I've had to stop now, had to clear out the bulk of the junk that lain unfixed for years . . .

I should have had a sign over my garage, a sort of reworking of the John Lewis mantra

"Never knowingly unsoldered"!

[mention:f80b53cee57c44bc9d7c577d07d7c791:e9ed411860ed4f2ba0265705b8793d05] John Wiltrout shared a similar story about his father feeding his interest in electronics in his blog Analyzing and Hacking a Power Supply Board

Even if your father doesn't share your interest (or thinks Ohm is the sound you make during meditation) then they can have a profound effect on shaping you.

Come one John, time to chip in!

RE: Father's Day Badge-a-Thon: Quality Time King

profcooksez — Sat, 18 Jun 2016 15:08:08 GMT

For this King (wife says I can be King If I believe it) the beginning many years ago did not come from my parents directly. My Grandmother allowed me to have one of her many TUBE radios that I could disassemble and also repair to make work again. GrandDad had two hand built radios that used the old A or B style batteries around the beginning of the 1900"s. The TUBE radios got me to where I could take most AM radios and "tune" them to receive stations from greater distances that they were set for! I then got an Upright Philico and a wall mount goose neck wooden phone. I repaired both and to this day I can plug them in and they still "sing" of the AM. I know that many of you out there enjoy "tinkerin" with stuff like this; after all we are of the generation that decided that you just don't purchase something to use for a short time and just throw it out. Today you purchase things, knowing that if under $100us that it is considered a "throw-away" and not to be bother by. So let us enjoy reading of your stuff!

RE: Father's Day Badge-a-Thon: Quality Time King

Gough Lui — Sat, 18 Jun 2016 11:50:57 GMT

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 [mention:8fb233e8974445138ef0af2b63b49f94:e9ed411860ed4f2ba0265705b8793d05] 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

RE: Father's Day Badge-a-Thon: Quality Time King

beacon_dave — Sat, 18 Jun 2016 11:37:13 GMT

I think like many, I started out as an 'un-maker'. I had the job of dismantling old electromechanical office equipment such as Dictaphone voice recorders, early storage and retrieval systems (pre-word processors), etc. and some radios and televisions.

My first electronics kit would have been the Philips 'Radionics x40'

http://www.radiomuseum.org/images/radio/philips_gb/radionic_radio_and_electronic_kit_1612739.jpg

which comprised of a multipurpose reusable PCB which you physically bolted discrete components into in order to create radios etc. Unfortunately the threads on the component carriers were somewhat long and I recall that it was rather time consuming to spin the nuts and washers up using the box spanner provided. It however did mean the components were reusable and you didn't need a soldering iron and as the kit was powered from lantern batteries it was fairly portable. One of the downsides to the kit though was as it was a PCB then it made it more difficult to adapt/build your own circuits. Later kits that followed used spring terminals and jumper wires so more flexible like breadboard. Looking back I think another downside was that it perhaps lacked some of the supporting educational content and I seem to recall that there was a tendency to end up building the circuits 'parrot fashion' as opposed to learning from it. In those days if you didn't understand something, then there was no Internet online community to fall back on.

At the same time I already had access to a number of Fischertechnik construction sets

fischertechnik GmbH - Products

and this was taken to a completely new level when Richard Pawson published his 'The Robotics Book'

http://www.computinghistory.org.uk/userdata/images/large/PRODPIC-10151.jpg

as it included robot projects for both Lego and Fishertechnik along with example code for the ZX Spectrum, BBC micro and Commodore VIC 20 microcomputers which were popular at the time. The book included the 'BBC Buggy' mentioned earlier by [mention:b0bc65b9ecdc4307bd967592f00e340a:e9ed411860ed4f2ba0265705b8793d05]

https://www.element14.com/community/community/members/blog/2016/06/17/fathers-day-badge-a-thon-the-maker#comment-86656

and then went on to show how to turn it into an XY pen plotter. To this day I still think that it was an excellent book published at the right time and it opened up an alternative avenue to the home micro which were rapidly becoming games consoles for the majority of people. It also had the right balance between history of robotics, practical applications, technologies then allowed you to get your hands dirty by building some which actually worked.