[Ground-station] Interesting Question from Community Member - what's your take?

[Dan White]

I'll bite.  In some way, this is a significant part of my day job.  ...
still figuring out something more efficient than 1:1 mentoring in the lab.

Do some small scripted kits, then a small project with an interesting
application but also deals with hardware you want to learn.  Iterate and
escalate.

Someone to help you select projects or filter the junk from good
tutorials.  So many online things look great until the last sentence in the
blog post saying ".. and it didn't quite work as the introduction
implied."  A mentor can detect that and steer you away from things that are
likely to end in frustration.

Some test equipment is pretty much required.  We require our 3rd semester
sophomores to have their own Analog Discovery 3 from Digilent (scope /
sig-gen / logic I/O / power supply).  It is perfect for 80% of 1,2,3rd year
B.S.E.E. needs.  A DMM is handy, but slowing down time with an oscilloscope
is the complement to a circuit simulator.

Have a meta reason for doing a project.  The thing itself plus an excuse to
use+learn X-component or Y-concepts.  That helps you build a base of
knowledge and experience.  Like software, small steps and test as you go.
Quickest path to frustration in electronics is not applying power until
it's "finished".

Dan White
AD0CQ

---
@ValpoWIREDlab
Electrical and Computer Engineering
College of Engineering
Valparaiso University



On Wed, Aug 27, 2025 at 10:03 AM Michelle Thompson via Ground-Station
<ground-station at lists.openresearch.institute> wrote:

> Greetings all,
>
> Our mission here at ORI is educational, personal, and professional
> advancement through open source digital radio work. The vast majority of
> this work is done on the amteur radio bands, simply because it's the best
> choice for experimental work. We use FPGAs, processors, ADCs, DACs, and a
> pile of other circuits to get work done.
>
> Here's a question that came up this week. The project in question is an
> SAO for electronic conference badges. The circuit design is all analog,
> mostly op amps. It's relatively simple. The idea is to collect sound,
> movement, and nearby warm objects (proximity detection of other humans) and
> then integrate those inputs over time in a capacitor. This capacitor level
> is then presented as an RGB led output. Blue means everything is calm. Red
> means I'm in the middle of a rave and probably overdid it.
>
> "Would love to tackle a project like this, but rn, my skillset just lets
> me get away with hooking up LEDs to a breadboard and make them blink
> without burning them up. If I'd have a crack at it, I would connect the
> output to a bluetooth jammer and other party deterrent components to
> regulate the radiation. Do you happen to have some useful beginner friendly
> tutorials/projects to get better with electronics? I find things online to
> be very complex or standalone component showcases, which don't give you a
> very good idea a going through a project from A to Z"
>
> It's really an amazing time for radio. We have SDRs, where people that are
> good at hardware can learn some software and extend their radio by many
> orders of magnitude in terms of capability. People that are good at
> software can turn fixed designs into adaptable and effective systems. What
> an amazing time to be alive.
>
> There's always a learning curve. Given that fact, what's *your* best way
> to answer "how do I get better at electronics?"
>
> -Michelle Thompson
>
>
>
>
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