I am a member of a local robotics group. We have members with skills from none to professional and a really common question has been “how do I get started…” or “how do I get my kid started in electronics, computer science, robotics” etc.
In the past we have had workshops of various kinds to talk about working with arduino, nodemcu and how to work with various kinds of components like stepper drivers and various sensors.
We wanted to revisit this but in a time of Corona Virus, our typical in person workshops were not possible.
We (the group managers) talked through several scenarios for remote workshops and our experience has always been that even in-person electronics and programming workshops require the instructor and a couple of people working with participants to iron out issues as they arise. These issues usually center on connection problems between components, bad breadboard rails, bad components, or just various issues connecting microcontrollers to PCs to program them.
Of course, I wanted to tackle a workshop that had all of these issues rolled into one over zoom! (Bear in mind that these conversations started back in October)
So, we looked at kits that are pre-built or limited focus and none of those were very useful from a learning electronics point of view. I had an idea of making a kit that used jumpers to make circuit connections so that we could limit most of the possible setup problems that the participants would have.
This seemed straightforward enough.
Anyway, 5 months, 10 circuit designs, 4 printed circuit boards, and 4 enclosures later, I’ve finally come up with something that I think will make a good remote trainer for absolute newbies.
I wanted to post this here in the wake of the acquisition of ESPHome by Nabu Casa. Might make a good dev platform for projects.
Thanks for reading. Happy Making!
