modern electronics education/jobs (was:
Interesting discussion! How much is this the familiar spectacle of old coots
(I am one of them) harrumphing about the younger generation and how things
are now going to hell? And how much is it a well-justified lament and elegy
over a true golden age and how its important and honorable skills are now
being disvalued and forgotten? I certainly hear concerns in many quarters
about how technology is dumbing us down. The FAA is said to be worried about
commercial pilots who can barely hand-fly the airplane whose Flight Director
has failed. I hear old machinists complaining about new machinists who can't
drill a hole if the drill-press isn't computer-controlled. And in my work,
nurse education, I see students who can't be bothered to learn how to take a
manual blood-pressure, because a machine can now do it (sort of). Much to
ponder here. . . .
Bill Schrempp
Hi
Indeed there is a bit of a shift in focus that has gone on. Look at a “kid” in the
1960’s and the same today:
In the 60’s stuff like radios were the tech target of choice. Today it’s servers and
game computers. No less passion, no less craziness. A different target.
Today a lot of time gets devoted to the internet and video games. In the 60’s
the focus rarely included either one. Stuff like Ham radio was bigger then.
In the 60’s if you wanted a this or a that, you grabbed a handful of parts and a
soldering iron. Today, you grab a compiler or an Arduino shield. (Try hand soldering
a BGA).
In the 60’s stuff like Heathkits were the low cost leader for this and that. Today there
is simply no way for a kit to compete with a mass produced item.
In the 60’s we were all going to be wiped out by atomic disaster. Today it’s a bunch of
guys with IED’s. (Some things never change).
In the 60’s the furthest you could go in math at most high schools was about 2 years
short of what you can hit these days.
In the 60’s the idea of a high school student heading off to another continent on a
multi week scholarship program … not so much. These days it’s common enough
that I know people who have done it (CERN no less).
Yes, a lot’s changed. Not all of it is for the worse.
Bob
On Nov 12, 2015, at 4:01 PM, William Schrempp bill_schrempp@comcast.net wrote:
Interesting discussion! How much is this the familiar spectacle of old coots
(I am one of them) harrumphing about the younger generation and how things
are now going to hell? And how much is it a well-justified lament and elegy
over a true golden age and how its important and honorable skills are now
being disvalued and forgotten? I certainly hear concerns in many quarters
about how technology is dumbing us down. The FAA is said to be worried about
commercial pilots who can barely hand-fly the airplane whose Flight Director
has failed. I hear old machinists complaining about new machinists who can't
drill a hole if the drill-press isn't computer-controlled. And in my work,
nurse education, I see students who can't be bothered to learn how to take a
manual blood-pressure, because a machine can now do it (sort of). Much to
ponder here. . . .
Bill Schrempp
time-nuts mailing list -- time-nuts@febo.com
To unsubscribe, go to https://www.febo.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/time-nuts
and follow the instructions there.
On 11/12/2015 1:01 PM, William Schrempp wrote:
has failed. I hear old machinists complaining about new machinists who can't
drill a hole if the drill-press isn't computer-controlled. And in my work,
nurse education, I see students who can't be bothered to learn how to take a
manual blood-pressure, because a machine can now do it (sort of). Much to
ponder here. . . .
Bill Schrempp
This reminds me of a summer job I had as a lab assistant between my
freshman and sophomore years at college. There were a couple of
journeyman machinists with Bridgeport mills. They didn't let me
use them, but they did patiently teach me how to use the drill
press, taps, hacksaw, etc to make simple parts that didn't require
their skills. They told me that, in Germany, a kid training to be
a machinist would start out by being given a file, a pair of calipers,
and a rough block of metal. His task was to make a perfect cube with
sides of exactly 1 cm by 1 cm. Only after mastering that, would
he be allowed to move onto more advanced equipment. Fortunately, the
machinists just told me this story to scare me, but they didn't make me
file a perfect cube. They did tell me I needed to learn to drill holes
with 0.005 inch accuracy using a machinist's scale and a center
punch to lay them out.
Rick
Hi guys,
Your mostly-lurking EE (and, recently, also physics) undergraduate student
here.
You guys make me feel nostalgic for my young age of
almost-legal-to-drink-in-the-US!
I wish I can reply to all of you one by one but I'd rather not clog the
mailing list with more off-topic discussion. (Feel free to email me
off-list)
I just have to say I have a deep appreciation for the previous generation
of electronics and technology and engineers (you guys). I personally feel
like I've been born into the wrong generation, or at least "conflicted"
between the two generations of electronics. I still enjoy hands-on
DIY-building, soldering, dead-bug style prototyping, and etc at home but it
definitely is starting to become obsolete and antiquated. On the other
hand, I also enjoy working in research labs with the cutting-edge. In the
former, time slows down and its just a matter of mostly applying
knowledge. In the latter, time passes by quickly and its all about
intellectual growth.
When I was younger, I frequently interacted with engineers that used to be
involved in the defense industry during the Cold War/Viet/Korean War era.
They are now mostly retired. They were my main source of knowledge, and as
a consequence, I grew up learning analog electronics by actual
breadboarding, hand-soldering, playing with oscilloscopes, and reading The
Art Of Electronics during my free time. It wasn't until relatively
recently I started using LTSpice. I have never touched an Arduino or
Raspberry Pi and I probably never want to*; I learned microcontrollers on
my own using the PIC platform and in a few of my courses on the ARM and
"LC3" platform. Perhaps the biggest contributor towards my passion and
desire to learn about electronics is my family. My father bought me a
brand new Tek oscilloscope during ~7th grade and made it clear to me that
he will spend money for my hobby if it meant I will have the opportunity to
learn. (This was significant, because from where I grew up, the Asian
parents were stereotypically notorious for being frugal and only cared what
their son's/daughter's GPA and test scores were)
In the research (the "cutting-edge") world, I actually find my past and DIY
experience useful in gaining an intuitive understanding of a problem or
design challenge at hand.
In the classroom, I heavily agree that most of my peers need more hands-on
experience. Seriously, some people still can't explain why knowing the
power dissipation of a resistor is important. Or how much current is
flowing through a pull-low or pull-high bias resistor. Or what happens
when you have a simple RC circuit (without having to write a transfer
function). It's kind of disturbing. Maybe after I've obtained my PhD, I'd
like to propose serious changes to the undergraduate EE curriculum of my
university.
Keep it up guys. If any of you are in the Austin, TX or Dallas, TX area, I
am willing to meet up in person.
On Thu, Nov 12, 2015 at 8:14 PM, Richard (Rick) Karlquist <
richard@karlquist.com> wrote:
On 11/12/2015 1:01 PM, William Schrempp wrote:
has failed. I hear old machinists complaining about new machinists who
can't
drill a hole if the drill-press isn't computer-controlled. And in my work,
nurse education, I see students who can't be bothered to learn how to
take a
manual blood-pressure, because a machine can now do it (sort of). Much to
ponder here. . . .
Bill Schrempp
This reminds me of a summer job I had as a lab assistant between my
freshman and sophomore years at college. There were a couple of
journeyman machinists with Bridgeport mills. They didn't let me
use them, but they did patiently teach me how to use the drill
press, taps, hacksaw, etc to make simple parts that didn't require
their skills. They told me that, in Germany, a kid training to be
a machinist would start out by being given a file, a pair of calipers,
and a rough block of metal. His task was to make a perfect cube with
sides of exactly 1 cm by 1 cm. Only after mastering that, would
he be allowed to move onto more advanced equipment. Fortunately, the
machinists just told me this story to scare me, but they didn't make me
file a perfect cube. They did tell me I needed to learn to drill holes
with 0.005 inch accuracy using a machinist's scale and a center
punch to lay them out.
Rick
time-nuts mailing list -- time-nuts@febo.com
To unsubscribe, go to
https://www.febo.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/time-nuts
and follow the instructions there.
When I got to a fancy school where they build satellites, I thought for
sure my soldering iron skills would be useful for doing all the fancy stuff.
But no! The satellites were built by a team of highly skilled ladies who
looked completely down on the amateurish skills of us wannabes. And I
include in the wannabes, the professor who had a Nobel prize!
My skills putting together circuits from handbooks for real experiments
were put to good use. Knowing how to use a scope and to not put the ammeter
in parallel with the power supply, was very useful. But no way was I as
good as the ladies who actually built the satellites.
Tim N3QE
On Saturday, November 14, 2015, Ray Xu rayxu123@gmail.com wrote:
Hi guys,
Your mostly-lurking EE (and, recently, also physics) undergraduate student
here.
You guys make me feel nostalgic for my young age of
almost-legal-to-drink-in-the-US!
I wish I can reply to all of you one by one but I'd rather not clog the
mailing list with more off-topic discussion. (Feel free to email me
off-list)
I just have to say I have a deep appreciation for the previous generation
of electronics and technology and engineers (you guys). I personally feel
like I've been born into the wrong generation, or at least "conflicted"
between the two generations of electronics. I still enjoy hands-on
DIY-building, soldering, dead-bug style prototyping, and etc at home but it
definitely is starting to become obsolete and antiquated. On the other
hand, I also enjoy working in research labs with the cutting-edge. In the
former, time slows down and its just a matter of mostly applying
knowledge. In the latter, time passes by quickly and its all about
intellectual growth.
When I was younger, I frequently interacted with engineers that used to be
involved in the defense industry during the Cold War/Viet/Korean War era.
They are now mostly retired. They were my main source of knowledge, and as
a consequence, I grew up learning analog electronics by actual
breadboarding, hand-soldering, playing with oscilloscopes, and reading The
Art Of Electronics during my free time. It wasn't until relatively
recently I started using LTSpice. I have never touched an Arduino or
Raspberry Pi and I probably never want to*; I learned microcontrollers on
my own using the PIC platform and in a few of my courses on the ARM and
"LC3" platform. Perhaps the biggest contributor towards my passion and
desire to learn about electronics is my family. My father bought me a
brand new Tek oscilloscope during ~7th grade and made it clear to me that
he will spend money for my hobby if it meant I will have the opportunity to
learn. (This was significant, because from where I grew up, the Asian
parents were stereotypically notorious for being frugal and only cared what
their son's/daughter's GPA and test scores were)
In the research (the "cutting-edge") world, I actually find my past and DIY
experience useful in gaining an intuitive understanding of a problem or
design challenge at hand.
In the classroom, I heavily agree that most of my peers need more hands-on
experience. Seriously, some people still can't explain why knowing the
power dissipation of a resistor is important. Or how much current is
flowing through a pull-low or pull-high bias resistor. Or what happens
when you have a simple RC circuit (without having to write a transfer
function). It's kind of disturbing. Maybe after I've obtained my PhD, I'd
like to propose serious changes to the undergraduate EE curriculum of my
university.
Keep it up guys. If any of you are in the Austin, TX or Dallas, TX area, I
am willing to meet up in person.
On Thu, Nov 12, 2015 at 8:14 PM, Richard (Rick) Karlquist <
richard@karlquist.com javascript:;> wrote:
On 11/12/2015 1:01 PM, William Schrempp wrote:
has failed. I hear old machinists complaining about new machinists who
can't
drill a hole if the drill-press isn't computer-controlled. And in my
work,
nurse education, I see students who can't be bothered to learn how to
take a
manual blood-pressure, because a machine can now do it (sort of). Much
to
ponder here. . . .
Bill Schrempp
This reminds me of a summer job I had as a lab assistant between my
freshman and sophomore years at college. There were a couple of
journeyman machinists with Bridgeport mills. They didn't let me
use them, but they did patiently teach me how to use the drill
press, taps, hacksaw, etc to make simple parts that didn't require
their skills. They told me that, in Germany, a kid training to be
a machinist would start out by being given a file, a pair of calipers,
and a rough block of metal. His task was to make a perfect cube with
sides of exactly 1 cm by 1 cm. Only after mastering that, would
he be allowed to move onto more advanced equipment. Fortunately, the
machinists just told me this story to scare me, but they didn't make me
file a perfect cube. They did tell me I needed to learn to drill holes
with 0.005 inch accuracy using a machinist's scale and a center
punch to lay them out.
Rick
time-nuts mailing list -- time-nuts@febo.com javascript:;
To unsubscribe, go to
https://www.febo.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/time-nuts
and follow the instructions there.
--
Ray Xu
http://www.utdallas.edu/~rxx110130
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Hi
Ok, I believe I first heard this “the kids don’t know nothing” story back in the
early to mid 1960’s. Pretty much the same comments. Kids out of school never
saw a soldering iron ever. All they know is theory, nothing practical. If only it
was like the “good old days”. Back then we put the all the junior engineers down on the
furnace for two years or so to learn how to shovel coal. No that’s not
a joke, actually quite far from it. That approach was pretty common in the 1950’s and
still hung on for quite a while in some companies.
So here’s the question:
I hear a lot about “I never did learn to program and don’t want to start now” from
various people. I would suggest that roughly 100% of the kids coming out of just
about any tech school today can write code pretty darn well. At least all the ones I’ve run
into can.
Which do you think they will have more use for, coding or soldering irons? Not
that either is un-important. Knowing how to stoke a furnace was indeed important.
It’s a matter of what’s likely to be more useful to them as time moves on.
There’s an awful lot of quick soldering jobs these days that go to a gal who does a better
job in her sleep than I could do on my best day. Fine pitch soldering is easy to mess up.
Shipping out a part with a problem is a much bigger deal than it used to be. It’s not going
to be long before that’s the only way it will be done. Skilled professionals do it or it’s not
done.
Bob
On Nov 14, 2015, at 7:17 PM, Tim Shoppa tshoppa@gmail.com wrote:
When I got to a fancy school where they build satellites, I thought for
sure my soldering iron skills would be useful for doing all the fancy stuff.
But no! The satellites were built by a team of highly skilled ladies who
looked completely down on the amateurish skills of us wannabes. And I
include in the wannabes, the professor who had a Nobel prize!
My skills putting together circuits from handbooks for real experiments
were put to good use. Knowing how to use a scope and to not put the ammeter
in parallel with the power supply, was very useful. But no way was I as
good as the ladies who actually built the satellites.
Tim N3QE
On Saturday, November 14, 2015, Ray Xu rayxu123@gmail.com wrote:
Hi guys,
Your mostly-lurking EE (and, recently, also physics) undergraduate student
here.
You guys make me feel nostalgic for my young age of
almost-legal-to-drink-in-the-US!
I wish I can reply to all of you one by one but I'd rather not clog the
mailing list with more off-topic discussion. (Feel free to email me
off-list)
I just have to say I have a deep appreciation for the previous generation
of electronics and technology and engineers (you guys). I personally feel
like I've been born into the wrong generation, or at least "conflicted"
between the two generations of electronics. I still enjoy hands-on
DIY-building, soldering, dead-bug style prototyping, and etc at home but it
definitely is starting to become obsolete and antiquated. On the other
hand, I also enjoy working in research labs with the cutting-edge. In the
former, time slows down and its just a matter of mostly applying
knowledge. In the latter, time passes by quickly and its all about
intellectual growth.
When I was younger, I frequently interacted with engineers that used to be
involved in the defense industry during the Cold War/Viet/Korean War era.
They are now mostly retired. They were my main source of knowledge, and as
a consequence, I grew up learning analog electronics by actual
breadboarding, hand-soldering, playing with oscilloscopes, and reading The
Art Of Electronics during my free time. It wasn't until relatively
recently I started using LTSpice. I have never touched an Arduino or
Raspberry Pi and I probably never want to*; I learned microcontrollers on
my own using the PIC platform and in a few of my courses on the ARM and
"LC3" platform. Perhaps the biggest contributor towards my passion and
desire to learn about electronics is my family. My father bought me a
brand new Tek oscilloscope during ~7th grade and made it clear to me that
he will spend money for my hobby if it meant I will have the opportunity to
learn. (This was significant, because from where I grew up, the Asian
parents were stereotypically notorious for being frugal and only cared what
their son's/daughter's GPA and test scores were)
In the research (the "cutting-edge") world, I actually find my past and DIY
experience useful in gaining an intuitive understanding of a problem or
design challenge at hand.
In the classroom, I heavily agree that most of my peers need more hands-on
experience. Seriously, some people still can't explain why knowing the
power dissipation of a resistor is important. Or how much current is
flowing through a pull-low or pull-high bias resistor. Or what happens
when you have a simple RC circuit (without having to write a transfer
function). It's kind of disturbing. Maybe after I've obtained my PhD, I'd
like to propose serious changes to the undergraduate EE curriculum of my
university.
Keep it up guys. If any of you are in the Austin, TX or Dallas, TX area, I
am willing to meet up in person.
On Thu, Nov 12, 2015 at 8:14 PM, Richard (Rick) Karlquist <
richard@karlquist.com javascript:;> wrote:
On 11/12/2015 1:01 PM, William Schrempp wrote:
has failed. I hear old machinists complaining about new machinists who
can't
drill a hole if the drill-press isn't computer-controlled. And in my
work,
nurse education, I see students who can't be bothered to learn how to
take a
manual blood-pressure, because a machine can now do it (sort of). Much
to
ponder here. . . .
Bill Schrempp
This reminds me of a summer job I had as a lab assistant between my
freshman and sophomore years at college. There were a couple of
journeyman machinists with Bridgeport mills. They didn't let me
use them, but they did patiently teach me how to use the drill
press, taps, hacksaw, etc to make simple parts that didn't require
their skills. They told me that, in Germany, a kid training to be
a machinist would start out by being given a file, a pair of calipers,
and a rough block of metal. His task was to make a perfect cube with
sides of exactly 1 cm by 1 cm. Only after mastering that, would
he be allowed to move onto more advanced equipment. Fortunately, the
machinists just told me this story to scare me, but they didn't make me
file a perfect cube. They did tell me I needed to learn to drill holes
with 0.005 inch accuracy using a machinist's scale and a center
punch to lay them out.
Rick
time-nuts mailing list -- time-nuts@febo.com javascript:;
To unsubscribe, go to
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--
Ray Xu
http://www.utdallas.edu/~rxx110130
time-nuts mailing list -- time-nuts@febo.com javascript:;
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Am Thu, 12 Nov 2015 18:14:57 -0800
schrieb "Richard (Rick) Karlquist" richard@karlquist.com:
On 11/12/2015 1:01 PM, William Schrempp wrote:
has failed. I hear old machinists complaining about new machinists
who can't drill a hole if the drill-press isn't
computer-controlled. And in my work, nurse education, I see
students who can't be bothered to learn how to take a manual
blood-pressure, because a machine can now do it (sort of). Much to
ponder here. . . .
Bill Schrempp
This reminds me of a summer job I had as a lab assistant between my
freshman and sophomore years at college. There were a couple of
journeyman machinists with Bridgeport mills. They didn't let me
use them, but they did patiently teach me how to use the drill
press, taps, hacksaw, etc to make simple parts that didn't require
their skills. They told me that, in Germany, a kid training to be
a machinist would start out by being given a file, a pair of calipers,
and a rough block of metal. His task was to make a perfect cube with
sides of exactly 1 cm by 1 cm. Only after mastering that, would
he be allowed to move onto more advanced equipment.
And that's been actually quite true. Not too long ago - well, around
year 2000 - when I was just about to finish high school in Germany, we
had a class in a machine shop. We were literally given one single piece
of steel of about 10x10x20cm, and were to make a pretty nice PCB holder
out of it. The only tools allowed for most of it were a set of files
and a saw. Only after we managed to get most of the parts done according
to the drawing - and they were tested to be nicely rectangular, to size
and pretty flat on all sides - we were allowed to drill the missing
holes and tap a few threads. Only the most skilled were finally allowed
to turn the screws for the class on a lathe...
Fortunately, the
machinists just told me this story to scare me, but they didn't make
me file a perfect cube. They did tell me I needed to learn to drill
holes with 0.005 inch accuracy using a machinist's scale and a center
punch to lay them out.
Well, 5 mil shouldn't be too difficult if some care is taken. Of course
this also depends a lot on the material used, dull or mis-centered drill
bits certaily can destroy alignment and hole sizes easily...
Best regards,
Florian