This question's for all those cool projects or skills you're secretly fascinated by, but haven't quite jumped into. Maybe you feel like you just don't have the right "brain" for it, or you're not smart enough to figure it out, or even worse, you simply have no clue how or where to even start.
The idea here is to shine a light on these hidden interests and the little (or big!) mental blocks that come with them. If you're already rocking in those specific areas – or you've been there and figured out how to get past similar hurdles – please chime in! Share some helpful resources, dish out general advice, or just give a nudge of encouragement on how to take that intimidating first step.
Let's help each other get unstuck!
I think main gotcha is power distribution and shared ground eg. using a boost converter or regulator to boost/downgrade voltage and which servos/sensors uses what. Later have to be concerned with too much current being drawn but yeah.
I used these green proto boards you can solder onto as a step up above breadboard but not my own PCB.
I highly recommend downloading Understanding Signals with the Propscope from Parallax (available for free online) and following the tutorials from it with an Arduino+Analog Discovery 2/3 device. You can use the Digilent "Real Analog" learning course along with it - https://digilent.com/reference/learn/courses/real-analog/sta...
The real motivation in Electronics comes from understanding in visual form (using a Oscilloscope/Multimeter etc.) how things work in a circuit and how your calculations match up to what you see on the screen. Even as simple as the beginner LED circuit can teach you a lot when you use a potentiometer and see how voltage/current graphs change.
Would you recommend the Real Analog course independently?
What does the Propscope one offer that Real Analog doesn’t? The Propscope one looks kinda old so I was wondering what I’d miss if I only used Real Analog.
Also not sure if there’s a parts kit for the Propscope one that I can buy.
The way I got proficient is with hobbyist PCB design. What helped me is starting with schematics and datasheets and planning to finish with an assembled board. I started designing PCB's and having them assembled with JLCPCB (quite cheap: $20 or so for a run of 5 boards; $120-$150 fully assembled). I fried 2 boards before the 3rd rev booted up, then from there it's optimization. I consider the $200/mo or so in PCBA, whether boards work or not, to be my "EE education" -- cost efficient compared to university fees! And $200 is sort of like the "exam," it's costly enough to make me really think twice about component selection/placement/etc.
Not saying that's the approach you want to take because that might be hardcore / not someplace you want to get to. But I spent a long long time really wondering how electricity really works and like why you need capacitors, inductors, op-amps, etc. It never made sense to me until I created my own schematic, chose my own parts, and understood why I chose the parts I did and connected them the way I did.
https://store-usa.arduino.cc/products/arduino-starter-kit-mu...
If you're in the US, you could just set up an LLC if you find some potential customers through the above method, very straightforward. Or you could set up the equivalent of a sole proprietorship in Europe if you're based here.
So lot less custom code and more linking things software focused on their specific needs.
1. https://www.reddit.com/r/myog/comments/1k3stln/ultralight_13...
It provides a huge amount of self-motivation and as much as I hate to admit it (as a one-time electronics design engineer), you can skip a lot of the middle-layer concepts. Sure, you should understand Ohm's law and what basic components (resistors, capacitors, transistors) do, but you can jump from that right into understanding how a battery charger works without having to understand how the components actually work.
The hard part is finding good tutorial material that starts at the right level: most of the professionally written stuff presupposes that you're either already an EE, or have one at your disposal to translate things for you.
Edit: And EE is genuinely involved.
Besides that, you just need practice and if applicable a bit of therapy. Practice comes with interacting with a lot of people until it seems easy. Therapy clears some of the roadblocks that might hamper you.
I think land lines are where many current adults (who grew up before cell phones were ubiquitous) learned a lot of that common sense, because in order to get in touch with anyone you had to be willing and able to make small talk with whoever picked up the phone first - chatty mothers, asshole brothers, mostly-deaf grandfathers, etc.
I've found asking folks about themselves, trying to get their story works best as a start, then if they reciprocate, things should flow naturally from there.
Yes. This is a learned skill.
Start by leaving your house every day and don't come home until you talk to 10 people you don't know. Do this every day for a month.
And yes, I did this.
When you are shy, there is sometimes the one kind person that introduces you/breaks the ice to others. You love this person because they lubricated the social interaction. I harness this feeling of being saved by pretending that everyone around me is the shy person waiting for someone to break the ice. I frame this internally as myself doing the shy others a huge favor that they'll appreciate. I want to be "that guy" that helped people feel included and involved.
I used to do this consciously. At this point, I rarely have to invoke this thought as I've now put in the reps and it's easier.
Tldr: pretend you're being a social savior and repeated practice
I imagine two languages - Langsam and Schnell - intertwined in some sort of yin-yang fashion. Langsam is slow, dynamic, interpreted, Schnell is fast, static, compiled. Both would be LISPs. Schnell would be implemented as a library in Langsam. If you said (define (add x y) (+ x y)) in Langsam, you would get a Langsam function. If you said (s:define (add (x int) (y int)) (+ x y)) in Langsam, you would get a Langsam function which is a wrapper over a JIT-compiled Schnell function. If you invoke it, the wrapper takes care of the FFI, execution happens at C speed. Most of the complexity typical of a low-level compiled language could be moved into Langsam. I could have sophisticated type systems and C++ template like code generation implemented in a comfortable high level language.
This latter part I managed to partially implement in Clojure and it works (via LLVM), it would be just too much effort to get it completed.
You might already know it, but Dusk OS[1], which is a Forth, has a Lisp implementation[2] which includes a native code compiler for i386, amd64, arm, risc-v and m68k. You might consider it a good starting point for your project.
[1]: http://duskos.org/
[2]: https://git.sr.ht/~vdupras/duskos/tree/master/item/fs/doc/co...
http://stephane.ducasse.free.fr/TopicsReflection.html
I’ll admit that part of my problem is chronic depression over a decade+. The idea of gamedev excites me, but I have a hard time feeling passionate about anything these days. You definitely need that for games. Hell, I’m barely able to sit down and even enjoy games anymore.
I think there is a group that is nihilistic and follows that with a defeatist view
There is also a group that is nihilistic and extremely content with the state of the world and molding it to their liking. Which is very useful
and then there is everyone else with the optimism
also this is not depression
Like half my graduating class ended up in a real estate company making directx based 3d walkthroughs for minimum wage.
Even if you are successful, the crunch is oppressive. The bigger firms will make you labor hard for your art, take all the cream off the top and then terminate your contract.
And yet heaps of people, even me when I am bored, want to do it.
I’m interested in traditional roguelikes these days (Tales of Maj’Eyal, Qud, Brogue). Ofc the dream is to make something with wider appeal, like Balatro, and get out of the rat race all together.
I'd like to go from indoor bouldering to rock climbing, but coordinating with a belayer doesn't seem super interesting and otherwise it's just a matter of expense, gear, and a slight pivot in my leisure time to start going at it.
Otherwise, the skill that seems most out of reach is keeping a job for longer than a year. I'm in a decent spot now, after a year and a half prior of being unemployed, and I feel like this might be my last real shot at a career of any kind. Other people seem to handle it fine, but this is the thing that seems most out of reach. Unlike engineering problems that are made up of abstractions with ways to break them down and piece together systems, keeping a job is as opaque of an abstraction as I'm aware of, that doesn't necessarily depend on a measurable skill or even on anything within one's control. I've never once felt stability or been able to bet on money coming in next year, and if I had the money for a mortgage, I'd be stopped by the knowledge I can't count on an income flow at any time in the future. I'm thankful for what I have and what I've learned nonetheless.
Start by talking to people at your bouldering gym. If you hear anyone discussing going out climbing, ask if you can tag along and just watch for a few times. Watch some videos about climbing basics to get an overall feel for it and some of the concepts and terminology. I'd say you should start out "top roping" on smaller walls. As for equipment for that you don't need much especially since your partner will probably have a rope and gear to build an anchor, etc. You'll need, shoes, a harness, and a helmet.
Going from gym bouldering to outdoor climbing _does_ require being a little more social. It's a minimum 2-person sport usually. But going as a small group and rotating roles and just hanging out watching works too.) You just need to find people you like hanging out with and you can trust. (If you don't find them at your gym, try another or ask around at outdoor stores, your local university rec department, etc.)
About jobs, I can't help you. I tend to stay too long if anything.
That said, I appreciate the sentiment nonetheless; more encouragement to get out and do hard, rewarding things, especially social things, should never be frowned upon.
Outdoor sport climbing is pretty easy to get into if you have bolted climbing in your area, but as you get higher the ground gets even harder so make sure you know what you're doing. Lots of good books and resources available.
If you really want to get into trad climbing be prepared for a longer apprenticeship, take your time and start easy.