4 ms·

Hey cool! I made this. It's fun to see it here on Hacker News!

jkingsman 5y ago
I took four years of engineering in university and work in software now, and one gif on your page made inductors click intuitively for me in a way that so many courses did not -- thank you!
- pgboswell 5y ago
  Ha ha! Thanks so much!
  - GistNoesis 5y ago
    I'm eager to see what a memristor would look like.
- elliekelly 5y ago
  Is there a word or a phrase for this learning phenomenon? When someone is suddenly able to fully understand a concept that has been explained to them before but, for whatever reason, they just didn’t quite “get” it?
  - anjel 5y ago
    Epiphany
- jbotz 5y ago
  You have a link to that gif?
- aj7 5y ago
  In my fifties, I finally figured out that the INTEGRAL constuitive relations for inductors and capacitors were much more fundamental than the differential ones. Solved virtually all understanding problems for me.
mcp_ 5y ago
I loved playing your last project Turing Tumble with my daughter. So I am really looking forward to your new project.
- pgboswell 5y ago
  Thanks so much for the kind words.
Judgmentality 5y ago
I'm only just hearing about this now but I love the idea and wish you great success.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
rkagerer 5y ago
Quick question: I noticed a Form 3 in the video. How much of the prototyping did you do on it? Also, I wish there were a pledge level where I'd buy one kit for me, and anonymously gift one to any random kid in another part of the world who wants one but can't afford it (kind of like OLPC did).
- pgboswell 5y ago
  You know, I don't recommend a Form 3 except in unusual circumstances. It's labor intensive, messy, and expensive. The resin itself is expensive, but then you also have to buy expensive new resin trays frequently because they wear out fast. I used it a lot when I was finalizing the 3D models to get them ready to send off to get injection molds started. The precision of a resin printer was critical. If I were you, I'd use a service like i.materialise.com instead. The prices are low for resin prints and they're pretty fast to ship, too. That's a great idea with the anonymous donation. If anyone is looking for a great place to donate, one really cool program is the Turing Trust. It's run by Alan Turing's great nephew, James Turing. He's awesome and he does amazing work. Here's their website: https://turingtrust.co.uk/ https://turingtrust.co.uk/
devgoldm 5y ago
Really amazing work, well done! Having something like this when growing up would've made electronics so much more accessible. I can't think of anyone I know close to me that would really appreciate this gift, so I'm with another comment on here that gifting it online somehow would be something I'm interested in. I'd feel happy knowing I'm supporting a great product and helping the less fortunate of the younger generation get better access to fun educational tools.
garrettgarcia 5y ago
I just pledged! My 67 year old mother got me Turing Tumble for Christmas and we worked through the first half of the puzzle book together. It was so nice to be able to explain to her what I do for a living with actual physical switches and marbles. I recommend it to everyone and anyone who will listen.
cmason 5y ago
I'm wondering if you'd be willing to expand on why you chose this mechanical, spinning metaphor for electronics vs some other metaphor? Most of the popular electronics books I've seen use a water or fluid metaphor to describe how components work (eg the fantastic Practical Electronics for Inventors). Not at all intending to be critical with my question, just curious. As a non-electrical engineer who dabbles in electronics, I'm excited for your work to help others learn and happy I can back it!
- pgboswell 5y ago
  Yeah, good question. My first attempts were with fluids: water and air. Water doesn't work very well because there's a lot of resistance to flow unless the pipes are large in diameter. It's not practical for anything but the simplest of circuits. So I went with air for a long time before I realized it had no chance, either - when it compresses and decompresses, it heats and cools, and that energy is lost to the surroundings. It makes horribly inefficient circuits. It's also hard to seal moving parts without adding an unacceptable amount of friction. And finally, you still can't see air moving through a circuit. So I stepped back and thought about how to do it mechanically. But the hardest part of a mechanical circuit is the absolute simplest part in electronics: the junction. That is, where electricity flows in one wire and splits along two wires. How do you make chain or a belt split? Not only that, but it has to follow Kirchoff's law: the sum of currents leaving the junction must equal the current entering the junction. I finally realized that's what a differential gear arrangement does, and planetary gears are a sort of differential arrangement that would work perfectly for this. It was very, very hard to make the mechanical junction so that it had low resistance while under load, but I eventually got it. Once I had that, I knew it would all work.
- caspar 5y ago
  This is actually explained on the Kickstarter ("The Making of Spintronics" section).
hermitcrab 5y ago
Seems a great idea. I did a physics degree and never 'got' electronics (Voltage, Capacitance etc) at an intuitive level in the same way that I did mechanics (Force, Mass etc). BTW We got Turing Tumble for my son and he really enjoyed it.

I took four years of engineering in university and work in software now, and one gif on your page made inductors click intuitively for me in a way that so many courses did not -- thank you!

pgboswell 5y ago
Ha ha! Thanks so much!
- GistNoesis 5y ago
  I'm eager to see what a memristor would look like.
elliekelly 5y ago
Is there a word or a phrase for this learning phenomenon? When someone is suddenly able to fully understand a concept that has been explained to them before but, for whatever reason, they just didn’t quite “get” it?
- anjel 5y ago
  Epiphany
jbotz 5y ago
You have a link to that gif?
aj7 5y ago
In my fifties, I finally figured out that the INTEGRAL constuitive relations for inductors and capacitors were much more fundamental than the differential ones. Solved virtually all understanding problems for me.

mcp_ 5y ago

I loved playing your last project Turing Tumble with my daughter. So I am really looking forward to your new project.

pgboswell 5y ago
Thanks so much for the kind words.

Judgmentality 5y ago

I'm only just hearing about this now but I love the idea and wish you great success.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

rkagerer 5y ago

Quick question: I noticed a Form 3 in the video. How much of the prototyping did you do on it? Also, I wish there were a pledge level where I'd buy one kit for me, and anonymously gift one to any random kid in another part of the world who wants one but can't afford it (kind of like OLPC did).

pgboswell 5y ago
You know, I don't recommend a Form 3 except in unusual circumstances. It's labor intensive, messy, and expensive. The resin itself is expensive, but then you also have to buy expensive new resin trays frequently because they wear out fast. I used it a lot when I was finalizing the 3D models to get them ready to send off to get injection molds started. The precision of a resin printer was critical. If I were you, I'd use a service like i.materialise.com instead. The prices are low for resin prints and they're pretty fast to ship, too. That's a great idea with the anonymous donation. If anyone is looking for a great place to donate, one really cool program is the Turing Trust. It's run by Alan Turing's great nephew, James Turing. He's awesome and he does amazing work. Here's their website: https://turingtrust.co.uk/ https://turingtrust.co.uk/

devgoldm 5y ago

Really amazing work, well done! Having something like this when growing up would've made electronics so much more accessible. I can't think of anyone I know close to me that would really appreciate this gift, so I'm with another comment on here that gifting it online somehow would be something I'm interested in. I'd feel happy knowing I'm supporting a great product and helping the less fortunate of the younger generation get better access to fun educational tools.

garrettgarcia 5y ago

I just pledged! My 67 year old mother got me Turing Tumble for Christmas and we worked through the first half of the puzzle book together. It was so nice to be able to explain to her what I do for a living with actual physical switches and marbles. I recommend it to everyone and anyone who will listen.

cmason 5y ago

I'm wondering if you'd be willing to expand on why you chose this mechanical, spinning metaphor for electronics vs some other metaphor? Most of the popular electronics books I've seen use a water or fluid metaphor to describe how components work (eg the fantastic Practical Electronics for Inventors). Not at all intending to be critical with my question, just curious. As a non-electrical engineer who dabbles in electronics, I'm excited for your work to help others learn and happy I can back it!

pgboswell 5y ago
Yeah, good question. My first attempts were with fluids: water and air. Water doesn't work very well because there's a lot of resistance to flow unless the pipes are large in diameter. It's not practical for anything but the simplest of circuits. So I went with air for a long time before I realized it had no chance, either - when it compresses and decompresses, it heats and cools, and that energy is lost to the surroundings. It makes horribly inefficient circuits. It's also hard to seal moving parts without adding an unacceptable amount of friction. And finally, you still can't see air moving through a circuit. So I stepped back and thought about how to do it mechanically. But the hardest part of a mechanical circuit is the absolute simplest part in electronics: the junction. That is, where electricity flows in one wire and splits along two wires. How do you make chain or a belt split? Not only that, but it has to follow Kirchoff's law: the sum of currents leaving the junction must equal the current entering the junction. I finally realized that's what a differential gear arrangement does, and planetary gears are a sort of differential arrangement that would work perfectly for this. It was very, very hard to make the mechanical junction so that it had low resistance while under load, but I eventually got it. Once I had that, I knew it would all work.
caspar 5y ago
This is actually explained on the Kickstarter ("The Making of Spintronics" section).

hermitcrab 5y ago

Seems a great idea. I did a physics degree and never 'got' electronics (Voltage, Capacitance etc) at an intuitive level in the same way that I did mechanics (Force, Mass etc). BTW We got Turing Tumble for my son and he really enjoyed it.