Complete design from napkin to production.

[tekati]

Dave and all,

I know this sounds like a crazy ass thing to request.  Keep in mind that you have a ton of fresh minds that are interested in anything electronic.  I would love to see a set of blog videos dedicated to taking even a fairly simple idea from sketching it up on a napkin all the way to a small production run.  Maybe a modernized example of the transistor radio someone was asking about.  How about a board with a SD card reader and an MP3 decoder with a headphone jack.  That to me would be a modern design that kids and adults alike would love to do.

What I am getting at is how an EE like yourself would think about the project from start to finish.  From drawing a napkin drawing to an actual schematic with proper circuitry explaining while building the circuit on a breadboard why you need certain components etc. To doing the design work in a PCB cad program.  Sourcing parts from suppliers. Finding a production house or houses.  Basically building the the final product.  Now I know you have blogs on several of these individual pieces and I commend you on all of them but I have yet to find anyone who has ever done a complete series on a single project linking each of the pieces so that students and hobbyist alike could follow from start to finish.  I really think it would be a huge hit.

I know your time is valuable and that you need to be paid in some sorts for your time and effort.  So I am willing to start with a small donation for this project.  I will pledge 1000.00 US dollars to this project and if others like me think this would be a valuable set of courses I would ask that others sponsor this effort as well.  Obviously you would not only have time into this effort but there would be costs in production involved.  I would obviously pay for this type of course and I venture to guess others would as well.  If you had a rough cost estimate on a project like this and are willing to take it on maybe we could start building up donations until you have enough to do it.

You have such an advance knowledge of electronics your followers myself included would love a chance to see someone of your caliber work through a complete project explaining your thoughts along the way.

[Mechatrommer]

i almost say "newbies always think its too easy...", but when i see $1000 notes... well, thats a one month worth of task! (at least in my place here), take it Dave! and if this guy can gather more people, just imagine! but hopefully it will be published publicly

[EEVblog]

Thanks, that's a very generous pledge indeed.
It opens a huge can of worms though.
Although such a concept sounds fairly simple to do a series of videos for (even if a lot of work), there are just so many permutations that it's practically impossible to cover everything.
And as I do with almost every one of my videos, I get complaints about "why didn't you mention this or that" etc. This would be amplified by such a complex and involved topic, and to top it off I would have had many (or all) of those people pay for the course.
What do I do then? Tell them all politely to "stick it, I'll produce what I want to produce" or forever chase my tail adding and refining the course so everyone is happy?

This is the problem with Kickstarter type projects were you get people's money up front. You have to produce what you promised when you promised, and you have to keep people happy and give them value for money, that's a big burden. AFAIK no one has done this successfully with educational course material before? It sounds very messy and fraught with danger to me.

Also, I suspect that very few people would be willing (or in a position) to donate enough money to make it happen.

And of course, those people who chipped in might get a tad pissed off if I then went and uploaded the content for free to those who didn't pay, or even possibly to those who only payed after the fact.
And perhaps the biggest thing is that this goes against my principle and desire of producing and making all my information open for free regardless of if people pay for it, donate, or whatever.

BTW, Kickstarter is not available in Australia, but there is an Australian equivalent.

Dave.

[JohnS_AZ]

I would think that you could actually line up sponsors for a series like that Dave. Get Eagle or Sparkfun to sponsor, and use their PCBCAD software. Get one of the cheap PCB houses to sponsor, and use them for the boards. Get Element14 to sponsor, and link your project BOM to their site. The thing is, since the series would be on the PROCESS, you wouldn't be directly endorsing the sponsors. You could even have an opening video roll saying "This series sponsored by ... " to make it totally clear to the viewers.

*shrug*  just MYO.

[firewalker]

A similar case is when you repair something for a friend, cousin e.t.c. after pressure (The phrase "I am an Electronic Engineer. I am not well trained for  (e.g.) tv repairs" does not "compute" for them). If you ever get persuaded to fix something don't ever accept money! If you accept money is like taking responsibility (at least what they think) for everything that will go wrong with that device the next 100 years!

[Mechatrommer]

If you accept money is like taking responsibility (at least what they think) for everything that will go wrong with that device the next 100 years!

you sound it too difficult for a person to make it as a business.