As many of you know, I love electronics, and I love teaching. Probably why I’m so keen on BlueStamp Engineering. And anytime there is something going on at Denhac while I’m in town, I try my best to make it. I’ve finally decided to get off the bench and into the game! When hanging out at the space, we were discussing the classes that the members could run to get more people in the space and maybe even develop some more membership. So I’m giving a series of lectures on analog electronics basics. So far I’ve only really nailed down the first two, which will be on 4/16/12 with lecture #1 at 1:00pm and #2 at 2:30pm, located at 975 E 58th Ave, Unit N Denver, CO 80216. In an attempt to get some feedback, I posted it on the Elemenet14 News site. Please let me know what you would teach (or like to have taught) at a class like this!
…….I spend nearly all of my design time working on analog electronics, and the majority of the Denhac community is digital/software engineers. So I made a lecture series for anyone with a casual interest in electronics to get their feet wet. I’m targeting FPGA/Microcontroller/Software engineers that want to know about the hardware that accompanies their digital systems, or anyone that would like to get into electronics tinkering. My goal is to help my fellow engineers and enthusiasts walk away with:
- The vocabulary to understand the issues that analog engineers face, and what it might mean.
- The ability for a digital designer to look awesome in front of a boss or design team. I am very impressed when a digital person says something like, “Hey Dave, I had to change the voltage on the microcontroller from 3V to 5V. Could you use that extra signal range in your op amp circuit that feeds the ADC?”
- An understanding of difficult constraints that analog engineers are bound to that may not be obvious. This might prevent asking something like why it is such a big deal to add 50% more current to a power supply rail.
- For novices to be able to design their own simple analog systems. If someone wants to build a weekend project, he or she should not feel hesitant because of a power supply or op amp problem.
Each talk is intended to be ~1 hour long with a relaxed, fun approach. I imagine it will be a bunch of people hanging out on a Saturday afternoon learning stuff, building stuff, and drinking beer. Since I’m making this stuff up as I go along, I’m posting my plans for the first two lectures here to see if anyone has suggestions to make it better!……..
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