New channel to follow! Thanks for the share. I'm a software guy. But I had enough brushes with electronics as a child to use it for hobbies. My first broken de

New channel to follow! Thanks for the share. I'm a software guy. But I had enough brushes with electronics as a child to use it for hobbies. My first broken device was a speak and spell. I connected wires to random spots to make it "talk funny". My parents first astonished that I was destroying my toys, realized this and pushed me to the electronics section of Radio Shack. Lots of projects starting with the 555 timer IC. I made radios and timers, and connected my computers to things that moved. This microcontroller revolution really has made me wish I had these things growing up. One important thing though is I had a friend who was at a similar level as myself for grades 5-7. Though he was literally a ham in grade school. We both learned programming around the same time and the back and forth made it seem so much easier than it really was. And we were so much better at recognizing what was going to be useful, popular, powerful when we worked together as compared to working under instruction. I lost him to a move. And I needed that so much in higher grades. One good industry-centered mentor would have given me so much. But I guess self-motivation is the skill that got me where I am; and I create incredible things on a daily basis. So there's that I guess.