I recently gave a presentation (December 3, 2009) at the weekly brown bag lunch presentations in our lab (HCIL) regarding my current research project – KIDVIEW (website coming soon).  The presentation went fairly well and I received a number of great comments and suggestions in response to my work and its current status at the time.  However, Ben S. suggested that when giving presentations, the presenter should always have a ‘take away message’ – something that let’s the audience know that it was well worth their time to come listen (besides hearing the presenter’s speel).

After a recent article about how the US should produce and export more to help its economy, I decided to   comment on the challenges I had in finding and obtaining various electronic parts with the US.  Most of the parts which I had been using up until that time were from other countries – at least those most important.  There were several times during the initial construction of KIDVIEW that I wished I could simply drive to the nearest ‘electronics’ store to get the piece I needed instead of ordering online, paying shipping costs, and waiting for that one much needed part.  My frustration led to disappointment and I suggested that the US needed to make DIY (do-it-yourself) electronics and fabrication material a bit more accessible, especially for kids and those who are inclined (or even the slightest bit interested) to test the waters, explore, and possibly become experts at build innovative gadgets and the like.

The audience agreed with me, but really what could we do about it.  Then, I ran across this wired.com video.  I am not sure if this will open the flood gates to DIY electronics fabrication, but it certainly raised my eyebrows.  Could this be promising or is it just some guy in a video making it all sound extremely easy?

I’ll check it out a bit more.  In the meantime, what do you think?

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