As a youth my stepfather owned a computer repair business. I worked with him every day and he taught me much about their components and problem diagnosing. That is when my love for computers developed. I married a man who had his first computer at the age of 7. He got me interested in vintage hardware. Recently, after watching EEVBlog for more than a year I worked up the courage to crack open my Chromebook. Her left speaker had stopped working a year or so previously. After replacing it with one I had salvaged from an older laptop I proceeded to take apart the laptop the rest of the way. It was so enjoyable! I began taking apart any broken or out of date electronics. Which we had 10+ years of laying around. Soon my son Thomas began helping me. We started by making a fan using parts from an old DVD drive and some electrical tape. We experimented with LEDs, resistors, batteries, solar panels out of calculators, whatever we could find! On order we have an Elenco 150-In-One kit for Mama and Tom to really have fun with! I have been learning the basic fundamentals of electronics. For now I am saving him from those complex theories. Keeping him interested with real world application is my goal. In the picture I am posting you can see him taking apart our old See-N-Say. Just like the one Ben Heck modified and sent in to Dave. It was fun seeing him realize what made the toy work! Now he understands all those fancy moving parts were just a complex mechanism to push a few buttons on a little circuit board. We will be happy with a win, but are keeping our fingers crossed for one of the Fluke 27’s! He thought it was pretty cool looking when I showed him a picture online. He gave himself a new nickname, “The Electronics Kid” he must always have his rubber boots on for safety whenever we are experimenting together! No matter who wins what, this is an awesome community of people and we are lucky to have it!
Thank you for the consideration,
Thomas AKA The Electronics Kid & Lacey Coyle