Explaining Electronics

Electronics
Charles Platt - Explaining Electronics

By Dale Dougherty

Dale Dougherty

DALE DOUGHERTY is the leading advocate of the Maker Movement. He founded Make: Magazine 2005, which first used the term “makers” to describe people who enjoyed “hands-on” work and play. He started Maker Faire in the San Francisco Bay Area in 2006, and this event has spread to nearly 200 locations in 40 countries, with over 1.5M attendees annually. He is President of Make:Community, which produces Make: and Maker Faire.

In 2011 Dougherty was honored at the White House as a “Champion of Change” through an initiative that honors Americans who are “doing extraordinary things in their communities to out-innovate, out-educate and out-build the rest of the world.” At the 2014 White House Maker Faire he was introduced by President Obama as an American innovator making significant contributions to the fields of education and business. He believes that the Maker Movement has the potential to transform the educational experience of students and introduce them to the practice of innovation through play and tinkering.

Dougherty is the author of “Free to Make: How the Maker Movement Is Changing our Jobs, Schools and Minds” with Adriane Conrad. He is co-author of "Maker City: A Practical Guide for Reinventing American Cities" with Peter Hirshberg and Marcia Kadanoff.

View more articles by Dale Dougherty

“People think of electronics as a field that changes fast, but the fundamentals don’t change,” said Charles Platt, author of Make: Electronics. “Everything is still made out of transistors; the only difference since 1975 is that the transistors have become smaller! The information in my book is as topical as ever, and it will still be important as a foundation for understanding electronics, 10 or 20 years from now. However, improvement is always possible!”

Upon the release of the Third Edition of Make Electronics, I talk with Charles Platt about his background as a writer, why he thought a new and better book explaining electronics could be written, and what he’s added and changed in this new edition.

Subscribe to Make:cast on Itunes or Google Podcasts. You can also find it on Spotify, Deezer, Podcast Addict, PodChaser and Spreaker. A list of previous episodes of Make:cast can be found here.

About the Third Edition:

  • The new edition has more than 100 all-new diagrams in color to guide the reader in building circuits. They are more realistic and easier to understand. 
  • All of the schematics are in exactly the same orientation as components on a breadboard. 
  • More than 80% of the text has been rewritten. 
  • Some of the circuits were totally revised. 
  • The final chapters about microcontrollers were completely revised and expanded. 

The scope of Make: Electronics is very broad.  You start with just a 9V battery and you end up with logic diagrams. The Third Edition has more than 330 pages and almost 300 photographs and diagrams.  Platt continues to make everything as simple as possible. “I wanted to reduce the necessary number of parts, so that people on a limited budget could still do the hands-on work,” said Platt.  Make: Electronics Third Edition is now even better for anyone wanting to learn all about electronics.  “My bias is that books are still the best way for you to learn electronics,” added Platt.

Make: Electronics Third Edition

By Charles Platt

ISBN: 978-1-68045-712-4

Available in Maker Shed or on Amazon

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By Dale Dougherty

Dale Dougherty

DALE DOUGHERTY is the leading advocate of the Maker Movement. He founded Make: Magazine 2005, which first used the term “makers” to describe people who enjoyed “hands-on” work and play. He started Maker Faire in the San Francisco Bay Area in 2006, and this event has spread to nearly 200 locations in 40 countries, with over 1.5M attendees annually. He is President of Make:Community, which produces Make: and Maker Faire.

In 2011 Dougherty was honored at the White House as a “Champion of Change” through an initiative that honors Americans who are “doing extraordinary things in their communities to out-innovate, out-educate and out-build the rest of the world.” At the 2014 White House Maker Faire he was introduced by President Obama as an American innovator making significant contributions to the fields of education and business. He believes that the Maker Movement has the potential to transform the educational experience of students and introduce them to the practice of innovation through play and tinkering.

Dougherty is the author of “Free to Make: How the Maker Movement Is Changing our Jobs, Schools and Minds” with Adriane Conrad. He is co-author of "Maker City: A Practical Guide for Reinventing American Cities" with Peter Hirshberg and Marcia Kadanoff.

View more articles by Dale Dougherty

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