The tinkering idea

Do you want your (future) kids to be excellent engineers?



This is the video blog post by an Australian EE engineer talking about how he got into the field. He got started with a 200-in-1 electronic component system, a gift from his parents.
He tinkered in his childhood, such as the experience of taking things apart, buying ICs and breadboards for making cool gadgets, saving money to buy a multimeter and a oscilloscope. I really love some his sentences in the blog (my paraphrase)

• the best industrial engineers are hobbyists before.
• the tinkering background gave him great comprehensive ability when he started formal EE education :"expoential learning rate", "everything just falled into the right place!"
• People who tinker usually have surprisingly broad knowledge.

Maybe I should make another post about tinkering in computer science, such as trying to install embedded Linux on a wireless router, tweaking network switches with ettercap and even cracking software with ollydbg and soft-ice. (Update) here is one
小學三年級的 Linux 玩家