Mechanical Electronic Circuit Boards is messing with my mind.

[BrianHG]

Looking here at this video:



What is being described as a electronic circuit and what I see how it's working totally messes with my mind in a horrible way.  I cannot make heads or tails of any of it.  This is not how I visualize electrons moving in a circuit.

Is it just me or is the visual hardware devices in this video totally the incorrect way to see how these simple circuits operate?  It's like everything is backwards or the opposite of how things supposed to be.

Am I crazy?  Watching this makes me feel stupid about electronics, yet, I've been doing analog electronics for over 20 years now.

[PlainName]

Once upon a time I hated electronics because I couldn't visualise how it worked. Nothing moved, so it was all make believe. Some time later it kind of clicked, but I am still more mechanically minded than pretending invisible things are whizzing around a wire. So these kits are dead simple, to me, to relate to, and I can see how the battery and resistor are made obvious via the mechanical analogs.

I guess it depends on how you think and how you got into this stuff. For some, no doubt the hydraulic version is more meaningful, or the pneumatic one.

[ebastler]

This has been discussed here a while ago: https://www.eevblog.com/forum/chat/spintronics-learning-electronics-with-mechanics/msg4344019/#msg4344019

The feeling that Spintronics provided a bad analogy, not helpful in developing an intuition for real electronics, has been voiced in that thread too. I certainly share that feeling! If I want a mechanical analogy for conductors, current and voltage, I will take water pipes, flow and pressure any time.

[SiliconWizard]

Once upon a time I hated electronics because I couldn't visualise how it worked.

It's interesting, this reminds me of the thread about oscillators on some level.

As I mentioned there, depending on which scale you consider, everything is an oscillator, but the less you're able to "see" it with your own perception, and the less it's apparently oscillating.

[RJSV]

   I'll likely spend the $140 to obtain both kits, here near Fremont, Ca.    (If I can find a TOY store outlet, that isn't obsessed with Halloween costume sales).

   That's a niche business, related to 'edication'. (SIC), But seriously I've made a lot of commitment to that business, and wouldn't mind creating a job for myself...somehow, some way...  That means expending the cash, if that what it takes, even if efforts flop.  Part of what attracts me is the wide open market, if others don't participate,...(they can do AI jobs, while I attempt to build something, in that off-beat marketplace.

[ebastler]

   That's a niche business, related to 'edication'. (SIC), But seriously I've made a lot of commitment to that business, and wouldn't mind creating a job for myself...somehow, some way...  That means expending the cash, if that what it takes, even if efforts flop.  Part of what attracts me is the wide open market, if others don't participate,...(they can do AI jobs, while I attempt to build something, in that off-beat marketplace.

From the same company, this one should be right down your alley -- a marble-powered educational computer: https://store.upperstory.com/products/turing-tumble

I think this was their first product, and it seems like a less forced analogy to me.

[IanB]

What is being described as a electronic circuit and what I see how it's working totally messes with my mind in a horrible way.  I cannot make heads or tails of any of it.  This is not how I visualize electrons moving in a circuit.

I think this is a problem. Electronics is not about electrons moving in a circuit. If you are trying to think about circuits this way, you are not (IMHO) using the right thought process.

I am a chemical engineer, so let me use an analogy. Much of chemical engineering is about liquids and gases flowing though pipes. If I tried to think about these liquids and gases as a bunch of molecules moving around, I would have quite the wrong mental model and it would be hard to understand or describe how things work.

To be sure, the molecules are there, but they are hardly ever important as such. What we think about instead is "stuff" with properties we can measure like temperature, pressure and flow (think voltage and current).

Is it just me or is the visual hardware devices in this video totally the incorrect way to see how these simple circuits operate?  It's like everything is backwards or the opposite of how things supposed to be.

I think I've seen this before, but I found watching the video highly illuminating, like having a lightbulb going off in my head as I see each component. It all made perfect sense.

Am I crazy?  Watching this makes me feel stupid about electronics, yet, I've been doing analog electronics for over 20 years now.

Not crazy, but lacking the right level of abstract thought in your mind about how things work. If you can reach a point where you can look at these mechanical devices, and see how they are exactly like resistors, capacitors, inductors, batteries, voltages, currents, Kirchhoff current nodes and so on, you will have a much deeper understanding of electronics.

[Circlotron]

If you can reach a point where you can look at these mechanical devices, and see how they are exactly like resistors, capacitors, inductors, batteries, voltages, currents, Kirchhoff current nodes and so on, you will have a much deeper understanding of electronics

Exactly.
That is how, for example, Thiele and Small parameters for loudspeakers in bass reflex enclosures came about when it was realised the mechanical properties of these acoustic systems had parallels with inductors, capacitors and resistors that formed electrical filters. The already existing equations for electrical filters proved to be a starting point for calculating the behaviour of a loudspeaker in a ported enclosure.