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How a Diode Changed My Life
- jcoffland 10y agoGreat article but this statement struck me as blind nostalgia. > Somehow, there is less magic in playing with Arduino and Raspberry pi than simple diodes. The lack of magic is likely due to being an adult. I'm sure certain kids still find this stuff just as magical.
- linker3000 10y agoTo a degree, yes, but in my capacity as a moderator in /r/electroncis on Reddit, my heart sinks a little when a person asks what's the best way to get into electronics and someone replies that they should get an Arduino and a few interface shields or a bunch of LEDs and start turning things on and off. Programming I/O or PWM signals is considered by many to be 'electronics'.
- jcoffland 10y agoIt's certainly much more likely to lead to a more profitable career. Do you wind your own transformers and use vacuum tubes? The really old guys would look down on cheating by using transistors and store bought coils. It's all just nostalgia. People can and should find the magic in different places than the previous generations did.
- linker3000 10y ago> Do you wind your own transformers and use vacuum tubes? Have done in the past. The trouble is, starting with an Arduino is a bit like wanting to be an engine specialist so buying an engine and fitting it to a chassic and wheels, but never digging in the opposite direction.
- jakobegger 10y agoThe first time I tinkered with a microcontroller was such a relief for me. Analog circuits seemed to never work just right; digital logic seems much less finical.
- driverdan 10y agoModern SoCs and microcontrollers are just as magical to me now as LEDs and motors and buzzers were when I was a kid. The fact that you can get a wireless internet connected computer for <$5 (eg ESP8266) blows my mind every time I think about it. I never imagined how cheap electronics would be when I was young.
- erroneousfunk 10y agoI volunteer on Sundays at the Boston Museum of Science, and lead an activity showing kids how to make circuits out of Play-Doh (yup, regular Play-Doh -- it conducts electricity!), 9 volt batteries, LEDs, motors, and a few other odds and ends. You'd be shocked at how many kids -- mostly boys in the 8-13 range -- show up at the activity, full of confidence, the parents are telling me how their genius child is constantly doing Arduinos/Rasberry pis/Little Bits/electrical engineering flavor-of-the-month toy at home, the kids are like "Oh, I already know how to do this!" I hand them they equipment, and they promptly take all the leads for the LED and the battery and jam them into the single ball of Play-Doh expecting it to do something. Well, it does do something -- it short-circuits my battery is what it does! Microcontrollers and simple circuits are just so different, the skills are different, the mindset is different, and people tend to react to them differently. Once the kids, or adults, do finally get the LED to light up, they're often just completely blown away, in a way that you or I might find a little silly. Parents are constantly taking pictures, filming their kids doing this for, like, 10 minutes, just shocked (not literally!) and amazed that they're actually controlling electricity. It feels a little primal/fundamental and magical. Like you're interacting directly with some previously-mysterious force of nature, whereas some of the other electrical engineering tools feel more like "appliances," which people use every day. I've seen thousands of reactions to people playing with the programmable robots, and Little Bits, Makey Makey (which also teaches circuits, but there's a lot of other "stuff" going on), Lego Mindstorms, but I have to say that those things never get quite the immediate and primal reaction that Play-Doh, LEDs, and 9 volt batteries get. They're just such different things.
- uberneo 10y agoOhh man .. this guy made me remember my all time love of hacking wth all sorts of electronic circuits .. those NPN transistors .. those FM transmitters .. those AM transmitters using 555 timer chip .. gang condensors .. and then on Digital side .. my favourite Op Amp , decade counters ... ohh my ohh myy .. i just miss those days .. :(
- lutusp 10y agoQuote: "Of course, as you can imagine, as a little boy, that peaked my interest." No, it piqued your interest. Should I read on and find more of the same?
- tyingq 10y agoThe writer is Turkish, and apparently speaks Turkish, French, and English. The article was interesting enough for me that I didn't feel a need to pick grammar or spelling nits.
- pbhjpbhj 10y agoI think there's a need for a format of soliciting editorial corrections that allows people to provide errata without feeling like they're being too picky?
- nitrogen 10y agoI think this need extends to other areas of potential improvement, too. We could all be much better at many things if there were widely used, polite ways to give and receive unsolicited feedback.
- tyingq 10y agoMost of the time, just couching the comment with a little kindness works fine... "Great article, enjoyed it. I noticed a couple of minor typos you might want to fix..." or "I see you speak several languages. English is a little tricky with homonyms, "peeked" in this context would be "piqued".
- pbhjpbhj 10y agoEven that seems a bit like it gets in the way. Also, if you didn't like the article does that mean you shouldn't offer a correction? Perhaps what I'm after is a meta-thread content-thread separation in some way.
- pieter1976 10y agoLovely story. Don't forgot that diodes also have a voltage drop across them which means that they can be used to change voltages from batteries or other sources if needed.
- AstroJetson 10y agoDiodes are cool. One changed my life too! But I built a crystal radio set with mine. Many nights of listening to AM stations across the eastern part of the US. (WGN, WOR, KYW, KDKA, WABC, WSM and WBAL) That took me to ham radio and electrical engineering. All because of a 4 cent part.
- onurcel 10y agoNice! Looks like there's always a point of no-return experience for geeks like us.
- StavrosK 10y agoAn Arduino Uno changed mine :( I feel uncool.
- AstroJetson 10y agoDon't, the Arduino is the 60's crystal set diode!! Also they are about 75 cents in 1960's dollars!!! So it's all good.
- linker3000 10y agoDiodes are cool. One changed my life too! But I built a crystal radio set with mine. Many nights of listening to AM stations across Europe. That took me to electrical engineering. All because of a 3 penny part.
- CarolineW 10y agoIt's also worth mentioning that transistors are basically back-to-back diodes, and that understanding a diode, really understanding a diode, is the first step towards understanding semi-conductor physics, and electronics in general. I remember well making crystal radios, firstly with store-bought diodes and capacitors, subsequently making my own capacitors, and then diodes. Taught me so much. The diode - gateway drug to semi-conductor physics and electronics.
- onurcel 10y ago"gateway drug to semi-conductor physics and electronics." => So true. But I will wait a little bit more than 9 years before teaching semi-conductor physics to my little boy ;-)
- dsp1234 10y agoBut I will wait a little bit more than 9 years before teaching Why? When I was that age, I would tear apart all of the electronics in my possession trying to figure out how they worked. I never could figure it out, until much, much later. Not because I couldn't have understood it, but because I didn't have anyone to help guide me with regards to electronics. edit: I would have killed for someone to have gotten me something like http://www.amazon.com/Snap-Circuits-SC-300-Electronics-Discovery/dp/B0000683A4 http://www.amazon.com/Snap-Circuits-SC-300-Electronics-Disco... which is listed as appropriate for age 8
- onurcel 10y agobecause he is 3 months old now :-) Semi-conductors physics may be too much for a 9-year-old, but an introduction to transistors or doing a H bridge to reverse the rotation direction of a motor could be pretty impressive.
- dsp1234 10y agoAh, I see. Totally misunderstood what you said, sorry!
- 2sk21 10y agoLoved the story and brought back many happy memories of hacking simple circuits with diodes and lights in almost exactly the same way.
- dbcurtis 10y agoThe part I love the most is that his father let him find his own answers instead of telling him the answer. I am on the board of a small science education non-profit. We do hands on science with kids under age 12. The hardest part about hiring teachers is that most teachers love sharing what they know - and thus give kids the answers. We want kids to explore for thier own answers. We have better luck hiring story tellers and teaching them enough science to deliver the lesson.
- onurcel 10y agoI've always wondered if he did this on purpose. I asked him recently but he doesn't remember, so there's a good chance that he just wanted to hack his stuff on his own :-) But as I mentioned he is a teacher, so let's say he did this unconsciously.
- irascible 10y agoJust wanted to say, this was a beautiful story and was very moving. Thanks for posting it. :)
- cyphar 10y agoMy parents were both teachers and did the same thing. From my perspective, I think that asking a child (or student) why they think something, or "what do you think X should do?". This is the main reason I despise Australia's education system, it doesn't cater to students that actually want to learn.
- cgio 10y agoMy bad experience with Australia's education system was when my 5yo son got chastised for looking at the clouds...No matter the context, i.e. he was the last one back in class, I can't fathom a worse educational approach. He was asking me whether he was allowed to look at clouds for months afterwards.
- cyphar 10y ago
- LikelyIntegral 10y agoFantastic story! Electronics work is amazingly rewarding; beats most hobbies out there.
- nfriedly 10y agoI had a teacher in high school who liked to mention that "any diode can be light-emitting, once." Still makes me chuckle :)
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- onetwotree 10y agoIs this guy sure he's not me? The only difference seems to be that my dad introduced me to electronics after he got sick of me taking apart various household devices to see how they worked, with mixed success at getting them back together in working shape.
- fogleman 10y agoI, too, have a special place in my heart for diodes. When I was a kid, I had one of those 200-in-1 electronics kits. It had a germanium diode on it. The diode was clear. I connected a 9V battery directly to it, no resistor or anything else. It glowed super bright bluish white for a second or two and then burned out. Now my EE friends tell me that no one uses germanium diodes anymore, and it makes me sad.
- ryansturmer 10y agoDude's EE friend here. It's true. 10/10 did break heart.
- CamperBob2 10y agoB...b...but SiGe HBTs!
- a_thro_away 10y agohaha. I still keep a vintage pack of 50 around for the rare instance I have to throw down a crystal radio set for the kids...
- AstroJetson 10y agoSave them, real 1n34 diodes are hard to find. Most of the ones from HK or China are fakes and lack the sensitivity for crystal sets.
- squeaky-clean 10y agoGermanium is still coveted for audio usage at least. Not for audiophiles per se, but musicians, especially guitar effects. It definitely sounds a different than silicon, and it's also more "lively" and unpredictable. I have a Fuzz Factory, and that baby can definitely scream and squeal like none of my other effects. But it also sounds different from night to night with the exact same knob settings. All my other effects, I can make a marking for where to line up the knob, and visually spot-check before a gig, but the Fuzz Factory I have to audibly test. Things like room temperature, age of the strings or length of my input cable even seem to make a difference!
- import 10y agoYou're such a lucky boy. My biggest challenge is making buildings from tape and VHS cassettes in my childhood. -- Adam muzik seti hastasiydi, sanssizlik aq.
- tzs 10y ago> Even nowadays, my dad and I occupy the balcony table in sunny spring days with electronic stuff to remember those days. Somehow, there is less magic in playing with Arduino and Raspberry pi than simple diodes. It's too bad the old Radio Shack Science Fair kits are no longer available. Here's a page from the 1975 Radio Shack catalog listing them: http://www.radioshackcatalogs.com/html/1975/h100.html http://www.radioshackcatalogs.com/html/1975/h100.html Go on to the next page, where there is more information and some pictures. Here's a site that has scans of the documentation for several of them: http://my.core.com/~sparktron/pbox.html http://my.core.com/~sparktron/pbox.html
- ansible 10y agoHah. I actually had the 10-in-1 Junior Electronic Lab Kit here: http://www.radioshackcatalogs.com/html/1975/h104.html http://www.radioshackcatalogs.com/html/1975/h104.html I had an recurring fascination with electronics, but didn't really grok analog stuff until much later. Digital stuff and programming really caught my fancy, and has never let go.
- jasode 10y agoHow many of us got one of those Radio Shack 150-in-1 electronics kits as a kid? (https://www.google.com/search?q=radio+shack+electronics+kits&tbm=isch https://www.google.com/search?q=radio+shack+electronics+kits...) It came with a book of projects (e.g. 150 projects and hence the toy's name) and each page had a listing showing the wires you attach from one coiled spring to another. Hook up different components of the board to make an AM radio receiver, or a "lie detector", or tone generator. Here's the crazy thing. I ran across an old one 20 years later as an adult and the toy's brilliant idea finally dawned on me: it allows small children to play with electronics without getting burned by a hot 700 degree soldering iron! Instead, the child's fingers push the springs apart and he inserts the pre-stripped wires to connect it to another spring. It was even genius that all the wires it came with were pre-stripped so that even wire cutters weren't necessary. Everything was also low voltage (9v & 1.5v batteries) so you didn't have to worry about a naked power supply plugged into the wall electrocuting the kid. (E.g. https://youtu.be/9RMKrpzoMkE?t=2m52s https://youtu.be/9RMKrpzoMkE?t=2m52s) My kit had diodes on it but unlike the author, the toy didn't teach me about them. Perhaps for others, the Radio Shack kit was a gateway drug to an electronics career.
- mattzito 10y agoOh man, i loved those things. I tried to make sure I got some variant of one of those for at least one holiday a year. I still managed to start a very small fire by hooking up a 9v battery to some steel woold that had been soaked in some chemical (thanks, chemistry set!), but that's hardly their fault.
- a_thro_away 10y agoYes! the no-solder thing made my parents very happy, and I could take it with me on long car rides. Mine was the earlier 100-in-1; my favorite (though limited) were the Radio Shack P-Box kits and are highly collectible on EBay. I did get a hold of a few hundred volts generated from a AA cell; that was the Eureka moment.
- tyingq 10y agoElenco still makes and sells similar kits: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00000IUD2/ http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00000IUD2/ (50 in 1) http://www.amazon.com/Elenco-Electronic-Playground-Learning-Center/dp/B0035XSZDI http://www.amazon.com/Elenco-Electronic-Playground-Learning-... (130 in 1)
- a_thro_away 10y agoNot the diode here; in the 1960s electronics became interesting and available as there was so much junk. I mean, people used to litter everywhere and there was random junk piles (and landfills) within minutes in any direction filled with TV and radio chassis, waiting to be hauled home with my minibike, spending hours retrieving valuable components as there were no retail electronics supply houses within a hundred miles and no one taught me mail order (RS Electronics - you suck, charging a 13 yo who walked miles and his whole weeks earnings the commercial MSRP for a single bridge rectifier). Each component was carefully removed, curated, and possibly fitted into some circuit from the few electronics books available to me. I cannot imagine how much lead exposure I had. My 15th birthday was a trip to a distant town and $100 to spend at this place called Radio Shack (and a bike), where I discovered all this other stuff and Forrest Mims. Theory had to wait until I went to HS and College in a larger city, but my seventh grade spanish teacher gave me his GI bill oscilloscope because I could identify transistors and current flow through them (Thank You prof Ludwig) and that kept me busy until then. Looking back, where there was a will there was a way.
- j1vms 10y agoThis story is short, sweet and presented very nicely with the picture and diagrams. Thanks for posting it for us. > We should first awake the curiosity and teach just enough to help them solve a simple problem. You should consider submitting it elsewhere online, as I'm sure teachers will find it of pedagogical interest, and worth a look, whether or not they are surprised by the conclusions/points you raised.