Padawans!!

[alanp]

Lee, Bret, and Jon, that looks amazing. How long did the initial lecture take?

Super impressed by the gutshots. Tidy as hell.

Also... it seems to be that a broad streak of OCD is useful in this hobby, and I'm curious as to how much of it the students have in their day to day life. I know that I'm horrible for that (I've inherited a particularly awful (to other people) habit of telling people the same thing when instructing ("You've told me that BEFORE."), since I've worked with too many people who have to be told something ten times, and it only sinks in on the tenth...)

Ramble over.

[m-Kresol]

Wonderful idea

[micromegas]

That's a great initiative! There are some guys here in Spain doing similar workshops, but they charge a lot and don't really teach much things. However, anything that get's some people close to this awesome hobby it's a good thing.


Cheers and congrats!


A compliment for the guy who soldered the 3PDT in the last photo. If that's his first 3PDT I'm really stocked - that's really, really neat!

[juansolo]

You have done well. Remember, when you can return with the coffee without spilling it, then you can leave

[Willybomb]

Good job.  It's always good to get people started on this stuff.  I did a workshop with some of my guitar students, but there was no lectures involved (besides me having to constantly tell one kid "TIN YOUR WIRE!!") or anything about how it worked.  I just drilled and supplied the kit/enclosures and led them through the process.

Good fun, and everyone left with a working pedal.

http://www.madbeanpedals.com/forum/index.php?topic=10577.msg94366#msg94366

[Bret608]

This is so cool that you guys did this. Cool to know that someone with the same name as me owns an awesome shop/maker space as well!

[circusbrains]

This looked really fun. I've been building for a year and a half now, and I feel it would be fun to actually know someone else who was into it also.  I am an absolute pedal building hermit.

[Leevibe]

Thanks guys. It's good to know others are doing this as well. It's a fun way to bring people on board and I hope we can do another one. Next one will be even better.

Lee, Bret, and Jon, that looks amazing. How long did the initial lecture take?

Super impressed by the gutshots. Tidy as hell.

Also... it seems to be that a broad streak of OCD is useful in this hobby, and I'm curious as to how much of it the students have in their day to day life. I know that I'm horrible for that (I've inherited a particularly awful (to other people) habit of telling people the same thing when instructing ("You've told me that BEFORE."), since I've worked with too many people who have to be told something ten times, and it only sinks in on the tenth...)

Ramble over.

We actually spent quite a bit of time with them. We did 7:00 - 10:00pm on Friday in which there was no hands-on. It was all about introducing schematic symbols and relating them to physical components and how all that relates to a PCB. There was definitely an over saturation the first night. Next time, we will probably break somewhere in the components lecture to let them learn soldering.

Saturday was 10:00 to 3:00. We started with a quick soldering tutorial and then let them practice by soldering resistors into scraps of through hole plated pad-per-hole. Then they populated the boards, including soldering all wires to the board. These boards are honestly as fool proof as is possible. The resistors are actually in order on the board R1-R6. There is almost no opportunity for a solder bridge here with how far everything is spaced. The only possibility would be the transistor. Maybe the LED.

It was easy to wire because I pre-cut & stripped all the wires to just 2 lengths. There were 6 wires at 3", and 6 wires at 2". Then we fired them up on the test rig. We stopped there and explained the 3PDT concept, then we mounted the power jack, pot and stomp. I designed it with room for a battery, but they all three opted out of that. Next we mounted the board & LED and wired the stomp. Then we wired the in/out jacks and mounted them.

We really had to start pulling back on the reigns with a couple of them when it got to mounting and wiring stuff. They were ready to race ahead and would have started getting things out of order and probably would have made wiring mistakes. It honestly wasn't too hard to keep them on track though. These guys were all three pretty smart so there wasn't a lot of repeating ourselves. There were just a couple moments of "you don't want to do that yet or you'll be fighting yourself" and "OK, remember to keep tinning that tip." We used pre-bonded wire, so no worries about tinning wire.

You have done well. Remember, when you can return with the coffee without spilling it, then you can leave

lol. And if it's cold, take it back and brew another pot.

[pryde]

Thanks for sharing your "syllabus" Leevibe. I do mine in one day (about 6 total hours). They just get a pretty basic walk through of a booster schematic more to understand signal direction, power, and ground, etc. Then as they are building their circuit they have the schematic infront of them and they follow/highlight as they solder stuff in to "connect the dots" so to speak.

Like you I prep a lot ahead of time like drilling, wires, etc. to keep them focused on soldering and learning parts.

At the end I give a nice packet of written materials, resources (including Madbean projects of course) and diagrams to get them on their way.

The best part is when they fire up their circuit for the first time. 

[studiodunn]

Awesome idea! That is super cool of you guys to do that, and what a boost in confidence that must be for those who attended.

[lrgaraujo]

Very nice guys!

[pogart]

What a cool idea. I've been stumbling through building pedals and this idea is amazing. I would be so into a class like this if it was in my area. Until then the support from the crew in the forum is like finding a bowl of gold. Amazing results on the builds you guys did too. Super clean and neat. Something to aim for on my next build.

[eightysixbret]

Both Lee and Jon offered invaluable instruction and guidance. It really couldn't have gone better. Thanks so much, you guys!