UptownMaker

Some general notes on the whole "Essential Skills" post. A couple of commenters mentioned that it is a bit heavy on electronics. True; partly that's because I'm an electrical engineer, but it's also because, in my experience, it's also where many makers (aside: I will continue to use that term; I came to my personal peace with it during the discussion about what to name the Twin Cities Maker group) "fall down" and lose confidence or run aground. Electronics is a massive sphere, and my hope, by including those things on the list, was to encourage people to develop familiarity with the most basic, most useful aspects of it (at least, as far as general making is concerned), rather than feeling overwhelmed by the whole thing and steering clear of electronics projects altogether. Some of the coolest projects I've seen were banged together by people with little or no electronics experience, just the confidence to go forward and the willingness to m...

@AntonOlsen recently posted an article on GeekDad enumerating 100 Essential Skills for Geeks. As he was inspired to do so by a list of "Essential Skills for Men", so I am inspired to make this list of essential skills for Makers. His list was a little long (100 items), terse (essentially one line per item, but with links), and slightly biased (heavier on computers than I might have liked, but to be fair, that is the most common geek fetish). I'm going to go for a shorter list, with slightly more verbose entries, and try to cast a wider net. If I get interest from this list, I'll follow up with an article on each point going into more detail. 1. Calculate power consumption and estimate battery life - Most electrical projects will involve batteries of some sort. Having an idea of how long your project will run on a battery can save you a lot of trouble later- that wireless garden soil moisture monitor is probably not going to run very long on a 9V battery. Mayb...