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  • Author Author: dougw
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Maker's Dilema - To make or not to make? That is the Corona question

The Covid-19 worldwide lockdown has caused numerous changes to our habits, schedules and activities.

This poll asks the question:

Has the lockdown increased your maker activity or has it decreased your maker activity?

Please explain why in the comments below.

  • For me the virus has been a minimal event.

     

    The biggest impact is that the Senior Center is closed, so I am not getting as much exercise and I cannot do my monthly military history discussions.

     

    I have been retired/disabled for nearly twenty years, so I do all of my book writing and production from home.

     

    We use carry out from our favorite restaurants to keep them open and help keep the economy running.

     

    While I am in a danger group, I do not worry about getting the virus. It is one of those unpredictable things that I am unwilling to be scared of. I am mortal, something will kill me eventually, so why worry about it?

     

    We do take reasonable precautions, but we normally avoid people anyway, so it is a minimal change to our lifestyle.

     

    DAB

  • in reply to dougw

    "...Do I hear poop deck?..."

    I think we had one of them over in Project14

    Poop Buster with Beaglebone AI

  • in reply to michaelkellett

    I've heard mezzanine card in the past ...... Do I hear poop deck?

  • in reply to dougw

    Parent board and child board, adult board and looked after board, primary board and secondary board, father board and son board - the solitary confinement is getting to me !

     

    MK

  • in reply to michaelkellett

    I also very much dislike the "M" word. I am glad I'm not the only one.

    Just trying (reluctantly) to stay in tune with current trends.

    While I have my grumpy old man hat on....

    I also dislike that every company comes up with a new word to describe daughter cards.

    (shield, hat, BoosterPack, FeatherWing, bonnet, etc.)

    It is much more confusing than having a generic term.

  • in reply to BigG

    When trying to get cameras for the PYNQ-Z2 workshop, I noticed that Amazon were somewhat depleted of a lot of main brand items associated with working on-line from home, such as webcams, headsets, monitor cables and adapters.

     

    At work we've already had to loan out hundreds of additional laptops and headsets in order to accommodate remote teaching and administrative support from home. Even though there are probably high numbers of smartphone and tablet devices already available in most homes, the laptop or desktop PC would still appear to be in high demand.

  • I see this poll is focusing very much on spare time. I wonder how many have seen a change in available resources to "make" their solutions or solve their problems. I've been looking into making a non contact thermal sensor project for NanoRama and it's quite extraordinary to see how many components are now out of stock as a result of covid-19. Other than that, other resource availability such as laptop and printer time have diminished somewhat as the kids are using more.

  • I've voted 1, not perfectly accurate since I hate and loathe the term "maker"* - but I have had more spare time and am therefore working more on my own projects  (rather than customers' ) but it's still work.

     

    * Perfectly reasonable for Doug to use the "M" word in this context - it's just that so often the term is abused to describe cretinous and ham-fisted DIY ! (For example see gross BBC series "How to Make" https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000gwzg  aaaaargh!!).

    rant over, sorry

     

    MK

  • I'm busier than ever. Work hasn't changed significantly as I could always work from home (although I quite like being in the office). My wife is a doctor and has to be at work a lot of the time. That leaves me to look after and teach 2 kids whilst trying to remain productive working from home. image

     

    Because of this my personal projects are suffering a little - although I'm still doing some. Luckily I started a new job about 7 months ago and it is pretty closely aligned with what I'd be doing as fun personal projects anyway so that's been good. It's a shame this dream job is likely to end in about 3 months, but I'm on a fixed contract and the company has been hit badly (as in 99% drop in work) so probably won't be able to keep me on.