Why I Got The Job

Hackaday readers are a vast and varied bunch. Some of us would call ourselves engineers or are otherwise employed in some kind of technical role. Others may still be studying to gain the requisite qualifications and are perhaps wondering just how to complete that final leap into the realm of gainful employment. Well, this one’s for you.

What sort of job are you looking for?

You might be a straight, down the lines, petroleum engineering graduate who’s looking to land a job in the oil and gas industry. Conversely, you might be an arts student who’s picked up a few skills with electronics over the years and are keen to gain a position doing grand installation pieces for musuems or corporate clients.

There’s a broad spectrum of jobs out there that require high-level technical skills, and my first piece of advice is that you shouldn’t limit yourself. There are things you can do to keep your options open, even over a long career – these could pay dividends when you’re looking for a seachange.

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Scissor Lift Table From The Wood Shop, For The Wood Shop

The value of a mobile adjustable height cart in the shop can’t be overestimated. From moving tools around to installing heavy fixtures on walls and ceiling, a scissor-lift platform is a great tool. Commercial versions get a bit expensive, though, so a shop-built scissor lift table made of wood might be a nice project for the budget-minded to tackle.

Wood might not be your first choice for a fixture such as this, but it’s what [Marius Hornberger] is set up to use, and with proper species selection and careful engineering, it can make for an amazingly sturdy table. [Marius] chose ash for his parts, a wood with a long history of performing well under difficult conditions. The table is not all wood, of course; metal bushings and pins are used in the scissor mechanism, and the lift drive is a stout Acme-thread screw and nut. We’re impressed by [Marius]’ joinery skill, and with how sturdy the table proved to be.

Not a lot of woodworking projects seem to show up in our tip line for some reason, which is a shame. We love to feature wood builds, and like our own [John Baichtal] recently pointed out, the health of the wood shop is often a leading indicator of the health of a hackerspace.

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Dead Bug Soldered LED Ring Of Awesome

Sometimes the simplest things in life are the most beautiful. [The Tweaker] has soldered an LED circle on the top of an ATmega328P chip, and it looks great.

Using nothing more than some solder, wire, 20 x Pico 0402 (1mm x 0.5mm) blue LEDs and an ATmega328P (7mm x 7mm), [The Tweaker] managed to cram 20 LEDs into a circle on the top of the chip soldered in dead bug style. The chip is running some Arduino code and is operating on the 8 MHz internal crystal oscillator, so that manages to keep the part count low. The soldering is done in a spiral so the LED terminals are hooked up to the right pins, but it seems to add to the aesthetics of the project and looks like it would take a really steady hand. Once you connect a power source it displays chasing lights as well as other light patterns.

There may not be much to this project but it does look great.

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