EEVblab #2 - Are Electronics Hobbyists Useless?

[_Sin]

Personally when looking at skills on a Job application I tend to assume that I would be required to be proficient in them all.

Really? I tend to assume they're shooting for the moon but will, in reality, take someone with a reasonable level of competence, and/or who could pick those skills up fairly quickly. i.e. the skills required are a guide to what the role involves, but it might not be necessary to be an expert in them, rather that the candidate will be capable when needed to be.

Of course if you want to exclude yourself from jobs that you could probably do, that's fine by me. I'll go for anything I think sounds interesting/challenging/fun, and the less competition the better.

On that note, I saw a good quote from Richard Branson the other day:

"If somebody offers you an amazing opportunity but you are not sure you can do it, say yes – then learn how to do it later!"

[EEVblog]

I agree, not many but a few.

Yes, and that's the same with most technical jobs. Usually if you are lucky you end up with 2 or maybe 3 suitable candidates from 50 resumes, and I certainly don't expect any more than that. In fact likely less than the usual full time job because of the more niche nature of casual role.

[84GKSIG]

when it comes to electronics i love to learn and ive designed probably only one circuit that ive taken off the breadboard and made my own pcb with, sadly the C stuff im not so good with, i have a mate of mine whos a fast learner with that sort of thing and if he dosent have the answer right away he will have it soon, sadly nsw is a little far for me from adelaide. i know and feel that some one deserving of the opportunity will come along    for me my passion for electronics started young and i always fall back on it as a hobby to the point where ive built my own mini lab and have enough parts on had that if i feel like making at something at 1 in the morning i dont have to wait till aztronics or jacars opened to get the idea bread boarded. documentation and various other bits and pieces i dont do much of im a little rusty with, how ever i think you will find hobbits of all natures with different focuses on what they enjoy, for me its audio amps and i know every one has a different preferred sub field, another friend of mine was deeply into variable high current power supplies for his slot car racing and thats all he did bigger better power supplies all the time and i always focused on audio related stuff and i still try get my hands on electronics mags how everi do enjoy the 80s eti being based around audio gear 

[AndyC_772]

On the ZXSpectrum childhood vs Iphone childhood - i can't help but notice that it's a problem that teaches, not capability.
Few things motivate a child to learn about electronics better than a broken game console and a desire to play on it.
What can break in an Iphone? 

Really? A games console, or an iphone, or any other piece of high volume consumer electronics for that matter, is a terrible thing to have to understand or debug. They're built from single-purpose BGAs attached to multi-layer PCBs, with little or nothing to probe, and certainly no room for customisation or upgradeability. I'd look for simple mechanical problems, then maybe try searching the internet for the symptoms, to see if they point to a fault that someone else has already identified. If that didn't work, it would go in the bin.

Hardware modification is no longer learning, experimentation, enthusiasm or support for the platform, it's "tampering". Try, for example, to add a memory card interface to your phone, and the physical inaccessibility of free I/O pins is the least of your problems.

[han]

i hope i can watch the interview in live stream? wink2

[ivan747]

Certainly that's not too much to ask. On the other hand though, I have many friends who are 4th year EE students who I wouldn't trust with the probes of a multimeter if you told them where to put 'em. I also know many people with the skills you mentioned and would love such an opportunity whether it payed or not.

That is so totally true, they are even more hopeless with an oscilloscope.
I'll never lend my gear, EVER

But I'm pretty sure Dave can filter those out in the first 120 seconds of an interview.

[george graves]

Because if someone already has all these skills, nowadays the people also know, what it's worth.. and you did not even specify the hourly wage, you old CHEAPSKATE!

But here is the bottom line - do you really think the skills listed above should pay less then a sign flipper on a road crew?

Dave, I'm afraid you might get into a loooo...ooong search for an assistant. The reason is, people with the level you require are already into business, those who might be willing to get this job are mostly young and unprepared   

Dave, perhaps instead of searching for a small lamb/sheep with 7 legs....
You want an eager smart apprentice, so look for one who fits 60% of what you asked and teach him the other 40% on the job. At least it will be more balanced.

LOL - apparently we are all in an alternative realty!!!!   

The only thing we learned is that Dave is a cheap ass.      But - he says that about himself all the time.  So - Nothing learned here! Rock on with your bad self!

Dave, you'll find some one, I'm sure of it.  Finding someone that meets your specs(kinda of), and you "click" with them for the first week - it will be awesome.  A true bro-mance.  Put them on camera too.    But the first time you can't get to a scope cause they are using it to measure voltage of a 9 volt battery,  you'll quietly fire their ass.     Time will tell.  Let's check in on this from a year from now.  Anyone want to place bets?  O0

[nowlan]

1. I would be surprised if you couldnt find someone at a local hacker space wanting to get involved.

2. I think "hobbyist" would be someone who doesnt do this for a living.

[MeganVonTincan]

I think the difference between a professional (someone that wants to be paid) and a hobbyist is that a hobbyist can focus only on the areas of electronics that interest him/her and still be considered a true hobbyist.  I'm sure there are many hobbyists that have never laid-out a PCB and some that have never moved any of their projects off a breadboard.  If someone spends a portion of their free time studying electronics and building-up circuits because they enjoy some aspect of it, I would consider them a hobbyist.  What I wonder is whether anyone would take the term hobbyist even further than I have and include people that simply study and use electronics, but aren't willing or able to do any detailed hands-on electronics work.

[tggzzz]

I don't know what it's like in Aus, but in the UK the level of what they spit out of Uni these days is diabolical!
You do get SOME that are worth more than given credit for, but from my own experience they are very few and far between.  I.E. I don't consider getting a Arduino or RPi to blink an LED becoming a "EE", it's definitely a start but most stop there as it is "too difficult".

That's always been the case - no change there.

I can vouch for that for the last 40 years, and 40 years ago people were saying exactly the same thing. And in 40 years time they will still be saying it.

[HackedFridgeMagnet]

LOL - apparently we are all in an alternative realty!!!!   

The only thing we learned is that Dave is a cheap ass.      But - he says that about himself all the time.  So - Nothing learned here! Rock on with your bad self!

Dave, you'll find some one, I'm sure of it.  Finding someone that meets your specs(kinda of), and you "click" with them for the first week - it will be awesome.  A true bro-mance.  Put them on camera too.    But the first time you can't get to a scope cause they are using it to measure voltage of a 9 volt battery,  you'll quietly fire their ass.     Time will tell.  Let's check in on this from a year from now.  Anyone want to place bets?  O0

Quit trolling George.
Place bets on what? If you are so sure you are right about something then say what it is.
If you think Dave can't get a good employee for what he is offering then I think you are wrong.
But getting a good but young employee to stay for a year is probably quite hard and I don't think extra pay will improve the chances very much.
You obviously think differently, but using emoticons instead of an argument is wasting everybody's time, so desist.

ps. If I was younger and in Sydney I would jump at the chance.

[mikeselectricstuff]

..of course another option may be someone at the other end of the age spectrum - retired engineer looking for more casual work.

[Towger]

..of course another option may be someone at the other end of the age spectrum - retired engineer looking for more casual work.

My thoughts exactly and they would be less lightly to leave for a 'real' job, after a year or so.

[(In)Sanity]

I'm a professional programmer that likes electronics more than I do programming.   While I have some formal education in electronics it's just a hobby for me.   That being said I started programming when I was 8 and soldering around 5,  I'm just a couple years older then Dave.   I could easily handle the requirements he's asking and then some.

Dave,  your not asking too much at all.  The problem is your either going to find someone like myself (only younger) that started really early in the tech fields or your going to find someone trying to figure out their path in life and they'll have little or no experience.    I would go for the retired gray beard type that knows more then you do about some things.   You of course want to watch out for personality conflicts no matter which direction you go.   With all respect I think you would be difficult to work for. 

Jeff

[sergey]

Dave, in my opinion you don't ask too much at all.

The main concern i've got so far from the discussion is about association of EE hobbyist with EE student. hey, i was never an EE student but i'm EE hobbyist since school or so! So what's the matter

As for payment, personally i would have choosed work for EEVblog back in the uni days than working for a software. That could easily be the same order of payment (some companies will pay you really a low just because you're too young, even after graduation, pfff!) but degree of enjoyment would have been unquestionable orders of magnitude higher! Especially if you let the guy to access the lab outside of the official working hours (like in the evenings, weekend etc). That makes the lab really attractive for hobbyists alike, imo.

Anyway, just my two cents, feel free to disagree.

[Howardlong]

..of course another option may be someone at the other end of the age spectrum - retired engineer looking for more casual work.

I was wondering that myself, although I'm not sure how many are going to be "quick learners", judging solely from the experience of how my brain works these days in comparison to how maleable it was a few decades back.

Although I am semi retired these days myself, and don't smoke, unfortunately I do regularly have access to a cat, so there's probably no point in applying bearing in mind the boss's lack of tolerance to them.

[Wilksey]

I don't know what it's like in Aus, but in the UK the level of what they spit out of Uni these days is diabolical!
You do get SOME that are worth more than given credit for, but from my own experience they are very few and far between.  I.E. I don't consider getting a Arduino or RPi to blink an LED becoming a "EE", it's definitely a start but most stop there as it is "too difficult".

That's always been the case - no change there.

I can vouch for that for the last 40 years, and 40 years ago people were saying exactly the same thing. And in 40 years time they will still be saying it.

Maybe, but at least in previous years you didn't have it so easy to buy ready made stuff off of the shelf, and PCB's were so damned expensive that you would never even consider getting one made for hobbyist use (hence why I started PCB designer later in life).

I remember programming a 6502 in assembler and actually enjoying it, at the time you didn't have hundreds of resources or the internet, you had a book on 6502 assembly language and a keyboard and screen.

It made you appreciate the way the machines worked and get involved with the hardware more.

Everything these days is virtual, but still run on real hardware, it splits the need to understand the real guts from the virtualised rubbish they run on top of it.

My worry is that in a few years time there will be no real "engineers" as such, just monkeys playing with virtual machines and Arduinos.

[XynxNet]

I don't think you are asking too much from a hobbiest, Dave.
On the contrary I was shocked to learn, that some see this skillset as a match for a professional engineer.

[tggzzz]

I don't know what it's like in Aus, but in the UK the level of what they spit out of Uni these days is diabolical!
You do get SOME that are worth more than given credit for, but from my own experience they are very few and far between.  I.E. I don't consider getting a Arduino or RPi to blink an LED becoming a "EE", it's definitely a start but most stop there as it is "too difficult".

That's always been the case - no change there.

I can vouch for that for the last 40 years, and 40 years ago people were saying exactly the same thing. And in 40 years time they will still be saying it.

Maybe, but at least in previous years you didn't have it so easy to buy ready made stuff off of the shelf, and PCB's were so damned expensive that you would never even consider getting one made for hobbyist use (hence why I started PCB designer later in life).

That's true - you had to make them yourself.

I've just updated a 40 year old hack, and I'll probably blog about it and the construction techniques sometime.

I remember programming a 6502 in assembler and actually enjoying it, at the time you didn't have hundreds of resources or the internet, you had a book on 6502 assembly language and a keyboard and screen.

Oh, that was luxury

The first computer I programmed didn't have a screen. I/O was via 5 channel paper tape, the fastest instruction was 0.576ms,and it had 35mm magnetic film and 8192 words of 39 bit memory (N.B no typos there). Must go and see it exhibited in Bletchley Park.

The first 6502 I specified professionally used me as the hand assembler, and I/O was via a hex keypad and 7 segment displays. That machine was the start of a great empire. viz: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acorn_System_1

It made you appreciate the way the machines worked and get involved with the hardware more.

Agreed.

Everything these days is virtual, but still run on real hardware, it splits the need to understand the real guts from the virtualised rubbish they run on top of it.

My worry is that in a few years time there will be no real "engineers" as such, just monkeys playing with virtual machines and Arduinos.

There I disagree - the Arduino et al are a good approximation to bare silicon, and are a very good starting point for kids.

Besides, nowadays the interesting field is bio-hacking. Guess what script kiddies will be hacking in 30 years

[tggzzz]

I don't think you are asking too much from a hobbiest, Dave.
On the contrary I was shocked to learn, that some see this skillset as a match for a professional engineer.

I completely agree with both those points.

[Sigmoid]

I feel that bashing "people today" has become something of a fad in the tech community.

I'm a software engineer, and I do come across dozens of people with software degrees who couldn't design an application to save their lives. I've done interviews with "software engineers" who were unable to draw a UML class diagram. (For all the hardware peeps out there, that's kind of like an EE not remembering the symbol for a resistor.) So yes, the idiots are out there.

But still, I feel that being a techhead has become synonymous with being a grumpy, grinchy old guy who goes on and on about "these youngsters these days".

Thing is, I think today is a much better time for electronics hobbyists than, say, 10 or 20 years ago. I feel that many people lost interest in hardware around the time computers really exploded. I also felt that software gave you unprecedented horizons, instant gratification, without any of the ferrous chloride, broken drill bits or burnt fingers.

Today, you only need to mess with ferrous chloride if you really want to - etching your own PCBs have become something like developing your own films. Something you only ever do if you really, really enjoy it. We have all these microcontroller and embedded computing development platforms like the Arduino, Beaglebone or Rpi... We have hackerspaces. We have open source hardware. We have the Internet for sharing knowledge.
It really has never been this good.

Of course, partially because of the above, the entry barrier is a lot lower than it has been. We have lots of "makers", a good percentage of whom are, actually, artists. You can be a "maker", design and build functionality, without having decent hardware skills. You can "fiddle" with hardware in the way you could do it with software back in the day. It's important to understand that this is not a drop in the quality of hobbyists, it's simply a new population that has entered the field.
(Some people look down on this, but hey... Look at all the awesome software people there are today. They all started out coding away like monkeys when they were young.)

[Kjelt]

..of course another option may be someone at the other end of the age spectrum - retired engineer looking for more casual work.

that needs an almost perfect match in personalities. You could get an ego clash or the "we did it like this for 20 years and I am not going to change that" mentality but it could work all depends on the person.

[Wilksey]

Oh, that was luxury

The first computer I programmed didn't have a screen. I/O was via 5 channel paper tape, the fastest instruction was 0.576ms,and it had 35mm magnetic film and 8192 words of 39 bit memory (N.B no typos there). Must go and see it exhibited in Bletchley Park.

The first 6502 I specified professionally used me as the hand assembler, and I/O was via a hex keypad and 7 segment displays. That machine was the start of a great empire. viz: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acorn_System_1

Everything these days is virtual, but still run on real hardware, it splits the need to understand the real guts from the virtualised rubbish they run on top of it.

My worry is that in a few years time there will be no real "engineers" as such, just monkeys playing with virtual machines and Arduinos.

There I disagree - the Arduino et al are a good approximation to bare silicon, and are a very good starting point for kids.

Besides, nowadays the interesting field is bio-hacking. Guess what script kiddies will be hacking in 30 years

You must be slightly older than I am to have experienced the old paper tape days!

Oh, don't get me wrong, I love the Arduino, I love everything it stands for in terms of getting people into electronics.  I know a few people who use them and I have introduced several people to them, there are quite a few platforms now for quick development, and Arduino is still one of the best ones available today and arguably most copied.

To me, the Arduino is a RAD prototyping systems rather than a "learning" platform, it seems logical to me that the next step in learning is to write your own libraries, or not use a library, but that never seems to happen, which just doesn't sit right calling yourself a true engineer by not knowing how the underlying code works.  Maybe that's just me, I don't know!

[_Sin]

I'm a software engineer, and I do come across dozens of people with software degrees who couldn't design an application to save their lives. I've done interviews with "software engineers" who were unable to draw a UML class diagram. (For all the hardware peeps out there, that's kind of like an EE not remembering the symbol for a resistor.) So yes, the idiots are out there.

Hmm.  I doubt I'd get far drawing a UML diagram, without being able to look it up. I mean, I've *seen* UML, but I've never used it in over 30 years of writing / designing software so I doubt I'd be able to produce anything coherent from memory. And I have a degree, but that pre-dates UML...

Does that make me an idiot?

[(In)Sanity]

I'm a software engineer, and I do come across dozens of people with software degrees who couldn't design an application to save their lives. I've done interviews with "software engineers" who were unable to draw a UML class diagram. (For all the hardware peeps out there, that's kind of like an EE not remembering the symbol for a resistor.) So yes, the idiots are out there.

Hmm.  I doubt I'd get far drawing a UML diagram, without being able to look it up. I mean, I've *seen* UML, but I've never used it in over 30 years of writing / designing software so I doubt I'd be able to produce anything coherent from memory. And I have a degree, but that pre-dates UML...

Does that make me an idiot?

I was going to ask the same thing,  I"m not given the time to document my code let alone create a diagram.   I also started when I was 8 and was writing 6502 (and later 8086) assembly code by the time I was 12.  Does it make me an idiot that I don't create UML diagrams.   People need to watch what they say.

Jeff