i’m a final year electronics engineering student,but i should admit that i dont have the required practical skills in my subject.All i know is some pure theory and some stupid equations.
I am really passionate about electronics, i like to start with hobby electronic circuits.
getting started is again confusing.if i start with the already designed ‘ready to make circuits’,will i be able to study the fundamentals of practical electronics?At the end will i be able to design circuits of my own?Will i be able to master it?

I am an Electrical Engineering student. I want to design PCB. So I need any simple circuit website, so from there i will pick the circuit…

i am a computer engineering student and currently studying in 5th semester. my interest after i am done with this bachelor’s degree, is in microelectronic circuits (vlsi and other stuff) design engineering or microprocessor engineering. i recently realized that i am forgetting stuff from my past learned subject even if i had A in them and it bugs me so much. there are soo many subjects and it’s hard to keep everything in mind. specially the electronic circuits and their diagrams. my question is, should i be worried about this? or can i later cover all that i forgot. if u are microelectronics engineer or microprocessor engineer what did you do and what advice can you give me? thanks.

I know there are a lot of smart people out there who will think I'm a total n00b for asking this, but here goes.

I'm 19 a sophomore engineering student studying chemical engineering, but I want to get into robotics and control systems as a hobby (I want to do stuff in alternative energy when I grow up). I kind of want to design a smart house (lights, A/C, TV, security, everything controlled by a central computer) when I grow up. I've kind of always been interested in this stuff, but I was always too scared to really get into it. Being in a university surrounds me with a lot of people who are smarter than me, so I figured I should stop being scared now and start learning/doing some cool things. Browsing websites like instructables.com make me feel pretty dumb because there are a lot of people younger than me making some really neat things I could never do at my current state.

I’ve been looking around for some robotics/electronics kits (designed for people younger than me. Sad, I know) such as:

-Lego Mindstorm NXT (http://mindstorms.lego.com/Overview/)
-VEX Robotics Design Systems (http://www.vexrobotics.com/vex-robot-kits.shtml)
-Arrick’s ARobot (http://www.arrickrobotics.com/arobot/index.html)
-Nerdkits (http://www.nerdkits.com/)

Have any of you tried these? How do you feel about them? For the professors/teachers out there, how do you teach your students? Can you recommend any kits or books? For those experienced roboticists and tinkerers out there, how did you get started learning about electronics?

Here is an outline of my education (what I know, what I don’t know). This is stuff that I think relates to robotics. I’ve obviously taken many more classes than what I’ve described, but they’re probably irrelevant.

-Math: I like math but I’m not good at it (why oh why did I choose engineering..?). I’m pretty comfortable with single variable calculus and differential equations. I’ve taken multivariable, got a B, and basically never looked back on it. I’m going to get my ass kicked in heat transfer, aren’t I?

-Mechanics: Very comfortable with mechanical physics. I’ve taken both general mechanical physics course as well as an engineering mechanics course, which goes into more depth with more complicated systems. I’m pretty comfortable with forces, moments, accelerations, tensions, trusses, rigid members, relative motion, etc.

-Programming: Took AP Comp Sci in high school (Java), and am pretty good in MATLAB and FORTRAN. I took programming and numerical/computational methods courses for chemical engineering and did very well in those classes. I’m not terribly afraid of learning another language for programming robots. As my professor says, “The most language to understand is logic. Understand logic, and other programming languages are just syntax”.

Things I’m afraid of/suck at:

-Electromagnetism: I got an A in this course, but electricity and magnetism still seem like very enigmatic forces of nature to me. I do not think of them intuitively as I do mechanical physics. I’m a very visual person, and it annoys me that I can’t see magnetic or electric fields. I wish I was a bird so I could.

-Electronic components: I know what resistors and capacitors are. That’s about it. I remember having to do stuff like LRC circuits in general physics (electromagnetism). Again, this stuff is still not intuitive to me. I know how to wire things in series and parallel (LEDs, for example) and which resistors to use so they don’t burn out. That’s about it. I don’t know what diodes and transistors and whatnot are. I don’t know any radio theory. I don’t know how a computer ACTUALLY works (the jump from code to actual physical phenomena). I don’t know how microcontrollers work. I don’t know how to control things with analog or digital signals. I don’t even know the difference between them.

-Soldering: I can do it, but I suck at it. No ones really taught me how to solder properly. I try reading stuff and watching YouTube tutorials, but my solders never come out right, and I don't know what I'm doing wrong. Other people seem to do it so effortlessly..

I’ve tried to read about these things, but I am usually overwhelmed. There is also a difference in reading something on Wikipedia and learning about it in real life. I guess I’m a little afraid of failure. I’m also afraid of spending lots of money/time on something and having it not work.

So now that you know my lack of experience and skill, what robot/electronics kit would you recommend for me? Any other advice for me for getting involved with robotics?

PS: I feel like money spent on legitimate education will pay off somehow later. However, I’d still like to keep my first project(s) under 0. Preferably much less.

Thank you, smart people, for helping me not suck as much in engineering.
One more thing I'm (kinda) good at:

I can use AutoDesk Inventor for CAD and drafting, which should be a real time saver if/when I start making really cool robots. For now, though, I think the robot kits try to avoid the need for power tools..

OK. I am a computer engineering student and so far what i have learned about designing circuits is one or two of following options.

1….take Laplace transform.
2….take Fourier transform.
3….take z transform.
4….solve ordinary or partial differential equation.

my question is does an electronic design engineer spends all his day doing this stuff? or he does something else. are we actually somekind of mathematicians or what?

thanks

As the title explains I would like to learn basically what a sophomore/junior level EE student would learn. I’m looking for the practical side of circuitry, and less towards the theory. Obviously you need theory to understand practical and vice vursa, but I would like to actually be able to make basic circuits not just understand how they work. I’m a sophomore chemical engineering student and I’ve taken Physics Electricity and magnetics so I understand ac, dc, R,C, L Circuits. Also, is there any book or site that has different chips and what they do etc?

The last thing is I want the book to be cheap…

These are 2 I’ve found through amazon that people seemed to like. Anyone used these?
Teach Yourself Electricity and Electronics, Fourth Edition (Teach Yourself) – Stan Gibilisco; Paperback
A Practical Introduction to Electronic Circuits – Martin Hartley Jones; Paperback

For highly sensitive electronic designs, u will notice that a push on the push button does not just bridge or unbridge the circuit.There is always very tiny smaller deminishing bounces that follows.
As an electronic engineer or aspiring engineer what type of push ciruit or deboucing switch can be better use.

Electronic engineering student.