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  • Author Author: jw0752
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Today was a Great Day

jw0752

This summer my Grandson Ivan has been coming to spend the day with me twice a week. Ivan is a very serious 10 year old with an interest in electronics. I always try to have a plan in place with experiments and activities. These have gone well with Ivan maintaining focus and interest for sometimes a couple hours at a time. Most of the time it's grandpa that needs a break and not Ivan.

 

Today the topic for our day was learning to use the computer to draw schematics. We began with a simple device, an LED Flashlight. I asked Ivan to tell me the separate components that go into making a flashlight. He told me : Battery, switch, LED, and resistor. I put these names on a piece of paper and then we brought up the schematic drawing program that I like to use. I explained that schematics have a general protocol where higher positive voltages begin at the top and the ground or negative is at the bottom. Also the power supply and input begin on the left side and progress to output of the circuit on the right. After showing him the basics of how the program worked I set him to work drawing the schematic and turned my attention to something else.

 

To my surprise a little later he told me he was done and he had produced a workable schematic of a flashlight. We then took the schematic and I asked him to breadboard the circuit. He has done this before so it was not too difficult a task. Next I told him that the circuit was no longer a flashlight but a room light and we needed to install a three way switch set up. I asked him to revise the schematic and then breadboard the revision. This too he was able to do. By now grandpa was smiling ear to ear as this was showing me that he had really learned and remembered many of the things we had talked about and experimented with in our previous meetings.

 

I proposed that we do something harder so I drew a very crude picture of a latching light activated alarm circuit. I did not draw the symbols but wrote words and made a rough rendition of the wiring. I set him to work producing the schematic and turned my attention elsewhere. Here is the schematic that Ivan drew. Keep in mind that this is only the second schematic he has ever drawn.

 

image

I now had him breadboard the circuit. He needed a little help in the form of hints to watch polarities and prods to check for all the connections to some of the nodes. Here is the breadboard that he produced. All the placement and wiring logic are his own.

 

image

 

The pin out on the momentary switch was confusing at first but once the architecture was explained he went ahead and used both sides of the poles. As you can see between the anode of the SCR and the LED he did a little creative wandering but the circuit worked and we were both pretty happy. Here is Ivan after completing and testing the light sensor.

 

image

 

Over the years I have been proven to be a very poor teacher. I have lacked the patience. The ability to captivate the interest of my children and grandchildren has always escaped me. After 20 minutes their little eyes are usually glassed over and the visions of toys, video games, or anything else besides what grandpa is talking about floating over their heads. This is why today was a great day. I could see progress and success in what Ivan was able to accomplish today and it felt really good to share this with him.

 

John

  • Great story, John! Thank you so much for sharing. We'd love to help keep the interest alive, so please check your inbox.

  • in reply to beacon_dave

    Hi Dave,

    You have some great observations and insights. I have always maintained that before the open availability of information from the web I could blame my lack of creativity and productivity on lack of resources. Now with the information of the world at my finger tips the only one left to blame for these deficits is me. My point is that you had the drive to use the resources and walk away from the games while many others may not have this drive. The answer to this problem is difficult and very subjective. Hopefully enough bright young minds will make the right choice so that we have the people resources to continue the technological progress we will need to solve the survival problems that will face humanity in the future.

    John

  • in reply to jw0752

    In my day I'm not really surprised that video games were such a distraction, as from what I recall it wasn't a particularly easy life being a child.

     

    For a start, days were perceived as being very long and monotonous often with very little constructive options to occupy your time with. As an adult it appears to be the complete opposite - too much to do and not enough hours in the day.

     

    Personal space was often limited to a small bedroom which had to be 'kept tidy' which limited the scope for projects that could be completed within the 'go tidy your room' timescale imposed by your parents.

     

    Most hobbies require tools and consumables which often were expensive and unless you shared common interests with parents and siblings then obtaining them was often limited to birthday and xmas gifts, or months of saving up pocket money followed by gaining approval to spend it.

     

    You wanted to participate in real world activities however were constantly advised that you were "too young".

     

    Access to materials to read was really limited (no access to free on-line resources back then) and often limited to what your parents or older siblings were interested in, which often were very different from your own interests. Schools and local lending libraries often didn't carry technical books which meant negotiating two trips to the big city in order to borrow and return a book.

     

    A lot of schooling was taught without any real word context, so perceived as being difficult to apply to the real world outside of the classroom. Lack of access to resources also meant that it was difficult to gain access to 'read around' those subject areas even if you wanted to.

     

    When you finally did get access to a home computer then you were usually limited to a maximum of an hour on it a couple of times a week as it was considered 'bad for you', or you could only access it when your parents / older siblings weren't using it. Once again access to resources to make the most of it (e.g. programming books / tutorials) were often limited.

     

    Enter the video game though and it appeared to solve a lot of the above problems. Something to do that didn't take up much space or require much tidying away, could be used over and over without the need to pay for a constant supply of consumables, designed in such a way that it doesn't require access to additional resources etc., interactive and usually with some form of built-in progression to either a next level or against a clock / high score. Most importantly though it relieved a lot of the boredom, and secondly they appeared to appease parents often to an extent where they supplied new games from time-to-time in-between birthdays and xmas (on the one condition that you kept the sound down)...

     

    Times have certainly changed however, and access to information is now so much easier via the web. That pretty much spelt the end of the video game era for me as on-line courses/webinars became the new distraction.

     

    However, it would appear that this has not been the case for the children of today. Not sure if this means that they are still bored like I was, and that other factors such as access to physical resources and the ability to participate in the real world still continue to be an issue.

  • in reply to jc2048

    Hi Jon,

     

    This is an excellent idea and the next time that Ivan comes we will implement it. I like adding purpose to our builds as this is adding a dimension of practical to a learning experience. I hadn't thought much about entering it in the contest as I feel about contests much like I suspect you feel about joining TM. image

     

    John

  • Well done, both of you. I think I see PCB layout somewhere in the near future if you keep this up.

     

    If you replaced the SCR with a socket, you could call it an 'SCR tester' and enter it for DIY Test Equipment. I'm sure Ivan would help you spend the prize if you both won. Just a thought.