Proud Parent of a Geek

Arduino Inventor’s Guide: Learn Electronics by Making 10 Awesome Projects – Derek Runberg and Brian Huang (No Starch Press)

I vividly remember the day that I attended my son’s freshman orientation program at his high school. The school was focused on offering a broad spectrum of learning opportunities to all of its students that stretched well beyond the classroom. When the presenters that day spoke about the opportunity to participate in the FIRST Robotics program, my son’s attention perked up; this was a kid who had been drawing robots, building Lego robots, cardboard robots and been fixated on robots since kindergarten.

I commented that the program sounded cool and that he should sign up. His response kind of stopped me in my tracks, “what if I can’t do it?” The “it” in question was the electronics portion of the robot building process. Naturally my response as an encouraging parent was, give it a try, you’ll learn how; hands on experience was the way to go.

That is what makes the Arduino Inventor’s Guide, Derek Runberg and Brian Huang so interesting. Runberg and Huang don’t just tell you how to utilize an Arduino controller to build nifty projects, they actually walk you through the process from start to finish on ten fun and real world projects that you can easily get the building blocks relatively cheaply and without needing an MIT engineering degree to make happen.

Speaking of robots, they show you how to build a motorized robot that draws with a pen. There are projects ranging in skill level from stoplight LEDs, to desk fans and even a playable mini piano. This makes for not only a fun hobby, but also a great learning experience in the best possible, hands on way. The good news is you can screw up and still start over and build a successful project.

So that hands on experience I encouraged my son to give a whirl…paid off quite nicely as he went on to college and then into the work world landing a career it IT. Clearly he’s smarter than his old man and the only credit I can take for his success was infusing him with a “what the heck, give it a try” attitude.