I studied both digital and analog electronics in college as apart of my physics program.
How to learn electronics
How I did it: 1. I started off doing circuit bending. This is an electronic artform that involves randomly connecting various spots on the circuitboard of battery-powered children's toys to make strange sounds. This video shows what circuit bending is:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w6Pbyg_kcEk
2. I began wondering why the circuits were making the sounds they were making, so I procured a copy of "Getting Started in Electronics" by Forrest Mims. I built several of the projects in there.
3. I am interested in music, so I built small synthesizers and musical instruments that made bleeps and bloops. Here are some that I started off making:
the cracklebox:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qI8XjXkWdkE
the atari punk console:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YVzn53luugU
4. I became interested in computing, so I made a very simple homebrew computer that adds two binary numbers.
Lessons & tips: The way you learn this is basically the same as the way people have learned throughout human history: work very hard on a difficult problem that is important to you. Choose projects that are interesting, and just try to start making them.
Resources: "Getting Started in Electronics" by Forrest Mims
People doing this are also doing these things:
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Electronics is the antecedent to computers (which is my profession) and between one and the other they seem to make the world run on time (at least mostly). I guess I’d like to be be able to understand and eventually manipulate some of the everyday technology around me.
swbluto is swbluto
But I’ve completed my “past learning”. Haha!
Anyways, I received an electronics lab from Radio Shack when I was 12 or so at Christmas Time(I don’t remember asking for it so I suppose it was my computer technician of a father who hatched the idea) and I liked building the projects using the digestible drawings and watching it come alive. Of course, I had no understanding of pretty much anything at the time…
So that’s what I’m trying to do now. I come from a programming background(During my teenage years and during the first few years of college: I’m now a junior in college) and I’m now intensely interested in electronics as I want to be completely enabled to design robots from every possible angle imaginable(so that angle doesn’t become a future hindrance), so I’m seeking to acquire the foundational knowledge. I’ve been using MIT’s OpenCourseWare at http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/Electrical-Engineering-and-Computer-Science/index.htm and have been slodging through the coursework and videos, and I’m using the book at http://www.ibiblio.org/kuphaldt/electricCircuits/, and I’m also using Tina’s circuit simulator to build the circuits and watching them act! I’m more interested in digital circuitry but I’m trying to not allow analog circuits become an Achilles heel. So far, I’ve built a Binary counter that runs off a 555 Timer IC and displayed the counting on my own digital logic gates to output to an LED number display(I later replaced that with a binary-to-LCD display IC since my simulator seems to choke on all the computation necessary for simulation) and now I’m trying to master memory elements so I could implement a finite state machine of my own design. After that, I’m hoping to master the electronics of radio control and wireless communication to a degree that’d enable me to implement wireless communication interfaces on my bots. Anyways, I can do some pretty cool things and I can hard-wire “memory” using digital logic gates(without feedback that enables real “memory” elements), but it wouldn’t be programmable or changeable… haha. After that, ARMS, PICs(or whatever micrcontrollers) are the next step(Well, possibly before or during the radio) and I’ll be re-entering the familiar world of programming which will hopefully tie everything together.
Got the electronics learning lab kit (ages 10 and up) from Radio Shack, and I’m working through it in my spare time. Next up: capacitors.
Nikola Novak had to give up milk. Lactose intolerance, methinks. :(
As the title says, but still it was a hell of a job. I finally learned and passed my electronics exam. I can finally get on with life! Yeaaaah!
Sorry, still feeling a bit euphoric.
I have applied for a course that i can do part time at the local TAFE college. I find out if i have been accepted on July the 5th. crosses fingers Wish me luck!
allogenes LaTeX: Because with great power comes great tediousness...
There is this art gallery thingie near here that offers an “electronics for artists” class. They start the next one this weekend, which I cannot do because I have to advance to candidacy next week, but I really hope they offer it again either late this summer or during next Fall. I want to do it so badly…
allogenes LaTeX: Because with great power comes great tediousness...
This should really be “learn more electronics” because I know a bit already, but this goal is close enough. And I’d rather consolidate goals than spawn another close variant! :-)
I wanna be able to build and MOD guitar pedals. That would be nuts. I am going to electronic school next year, can’t wait!


