Intro to Soldering #1
Published by aknipe

Barrel of Makers has been wanting to do a soldering workshop for a long time.  We received a microgrant from the fabulous Wilmington STIR dinner to put toward the materials, but it just wasn’t enough.

After over a year of running various Make-Alongs, on January 12th, we held an Intro to Soldering Make-Along!  Brian Givens taught the class with help from Greg Cheng, and I was….there.  ; )

It was so great!  Everyone created a Trippy RGB waves kit.  By the time they’d soldered it, they were ready to take on any kit out there!  Some of the soldering was super difficult–very close through holes which needed to be soldered so that none of the solder would touch!  Only 2 out of the 7 attendees has ever soldered, and everyone accomplished it.  All the kits lit up right away, and no one burned themselves!  Amazing, since my boyfriend still burns himself every time he solders.

At first, all the kits, are running through their own cycle of colors, but when you wave your hand over them, their light sensors cause them to all reset in unison

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We learned a few things from teaching the class: 

1. despite having “third hands” to hold the circuit boards, it’s also good to have some play dough to stick them in and hold them steady.

2. Metal sponges are way better than wet ones.  So, we’ve got to order some.

These are mportant discoveries because we will soon be teaching this class again to 50 kids through the FAME program!  We’re ready!

We’ll also be teaching a second session to the kids at FAME.  If you’d like to be a guinea pig for that 2nd class, join us at the Creative Vision Factory on March 9th.  We’ll be doing a run through with 10 of you.  If you’ve soldered before, this is the class where you take your skills to the next level!  Find out more on Meetup.

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