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Karl Von Moller has been putting together a documentary called ‘State of Electronics  –  A discussion on the electronics industry in Australia’.  This looks like a fascinating and thorough look at the electronics industry in one country.  Although focussed on Australia much of the content and discussion will be recognizable and similar to other countries.  The final version has not been released yet but it looks like it will be great viewing when it is.  Seems it is growing to three parts.  I’m looking forward to seeing the finished documentary.

Interesting point to note is the documentary has been filmed using a Canon D5 MarkII digital SLR.

Below is the trailer followed by the ‘roll call’ of people who appear in the documentary.

You have to learn electronics by building circuits.  However, it can be very intimidating to get started and once you have some familiarity you may need further guidance, especially in the art of circuit design.  Last week I watched three excellent tutorial videos which show there are some who are putting excellent material on the Web to help others further their learning of electronics.  Here are the three.

First video covers some basic, but necessary understanding of multimeters and their use.  Essential knowledge for beginners.  This is by Colin Cunningham of Makezine.com and part of his ongoing electronics  video posts at Make magazine’s website.

The next one steps it up quite a lot in detail but it is Dave Jones of the EEVblog showing how a component can be selected  by a designer for a circuit, in this case for a DC-DC booster.  It a long video, but shows how to use online catalogues, conduct parametric searches as well as the essential examination of component datasheets.  Well worth watching carefully.

FInally, what looks like a new video podcast series from component supplier Element 14 and Jeri Ellsworth.  In this video Jeri designs a circuit for some music playing installation art, that is triggered by motion detected by a PIR.  This is a great tutorial video and I look forward to seeing more of these. The link to the video is here.

The latest good news seems to be that today it was announced that Jeri is joining Element14′s “Ask an Expert” panel.

(Copyright V Steele)

Ginny, my wife, is a one of a group of leaders for a Brownie pack in a nearby village. Last week we showed the Brownies some simple electronics and they had some fun with a really simple circuit.

We had them put a number of LEDs onto a 3V button cell, rather like a LED throwies but without the magnet.  Once they had an arrangement of three or four LEDs on a cell Ginny took photographs of them in a darkened room as they waved the LEDs around.  Taking a photograph on a slow file speed setting (ISO 80) and over a relatively long period (15 s) the Brownies created some great art by ‘painting with light’.  As well as the example above, a small selection is shown below.

(All photographs copyright V Steele)

There was about 22 or so Brownies and we had them work on an LED ‘circuit’ in pairs.  They really enjoyed the fun of arranging the LEDs and working out which way around to place them. However, I think they had the most fun with the ‘drawing with light’.

While some were involved with the photography I showed others the fun that could be had with electronics and how circuits could make things work.  To do that I showed them how I could not light up an ultra-bright LED with a used 1.5V battery on its own.  But, when I used a few components, connected into a Joule thief circuit, then the LED would light up brightly with the 1.5V battery.  I also had some plastic optical fibre too and they had fun watching light bending around corners.

We kept the exercise simple and very visual and they all seemed to enjoy it.

If you want to make your own Joule thief you may find the Make magazine podcast below interesting and useful to watch.

I came across this video by Jeri Ellsworth via the Make blog and I was so impressed with the content I thought I would repost it.  Listen to what Jeri says, there is some great advice here.

For readers local to my home area you may be interested in this exciting and free event in Ottawa this weekend. Full details can be found on the Artengine website. The essential details are:

Dates and times: Nov. 6th and Nov 7th, 12pm to 6pm.

Location: Arts Court 2 Daly Ave. Ottawa, ON K1N 6E2

If you are not sure what makers do or what goes on at a Maker Faire take a look at this video of the 2010 Kansas City Mini Maker Faire