Beginner Concepts: Electronics Basics From The Giz

Gizmodo University is open for business. This free educational series aims to educate about the basics of electronic theory. No prerequisite knowledge needed and they’re starting from the ground level. First lesson? Resistors! From there they’ve posted about voltage dividers, series/parallel circuits, Ohm’s law, and how to calculate a resistor value for an LED.

This is a great way to get the base knowledge that you need to start hacking like an EE. These are concepts that we assume you have already mastered if you’re following along with our AVR Programming series. We’re hard at work on part three but that’s still a little ways off. You’ve got time to do a review a GizU and reread our favorite book on electronic theory.

7 thoughts on “Beginner Concepts: Electronics Basics From The Giz

  1. Thanks for the what’s up Mike. I watched both lessons and will be watching the last 2 as well. This will absolutely help with understanding your AVR series. I also ordered one of the books you recommended and bought a breadboard as well. This is exciting for me. Can’t wait to be sharing my own hacks on HAD. Thanks again.

  2. I had completed HeathKit AC and DC electronics courses by age 12. Those courses were 3 ring binders that were easily 3 1/2″ thick. It’s funny, I knew a couple other kids who did basically the same thing. You don’t see that much anymore – Many kids will read through a tutorial here and there, but there’s no caring for the fundamentals behind it all. It’s really sad, you then end up with a majority of the kids in college-level Electrical programs having never been exposed to electrical theory before. Even worse, many professors don’t really like failing people, so they save them with a nice big curve, and only fail 1 or 2 out of a class of 50, even though 20% of the class is below failing level.

    Kids, read this stuff, learn it all, and understand it well if you’re trying to get into electrical engineering. It will be very helpful either way, and if you do join an EE program somewhere, having this knowledge beforehand will set you apart from the average nub!

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