Xavier's Second Circuit
Hello to all.
With Rebecca away, Xavier and I have been looking at electricity a little bit, with our focus on building a traffic light. The idea is to start with a rudimentary circuit so Xavier can get the basics, then move on to a more robust circuit done on a breadboard so Xavier can help press components together. Once the breadboard phase is complete, we are going to solder everything into place, box it and build a pole to mount the LEDs.
Xavier has engaged this idea eagerly. We are still waiting for red LEDs to come in the mail (they were back-ordered). Every day Xavier checks the front door step for them when we come home from school.
Last weekend, it occurred to me that an electronic toy I had built in the early eighties might be something Xavier would get enjoyment out of. Since he has expressed interest in basic electronics, I thought this toy might help fan that interest, not so much to understand the way of electricity, but just to have fun.
The problem was, I had not seen the project in years, probably decades. It got packed up when my mother moved houses in 1986, and if it ever got unpacked it got packed up again when Rebecca, Xavier and I moved to our Lakewood home.
Well, that meant the project was in the storage dresser in the barn, or in one of the many unpacked boxes still lining the walls of the downstairs spare bedroom.
Checking the barn yielded no joy. That meant the spare room. What a task lay ahead! Fortunately, I fastidiously label boxes when moving. Hopefully something on the box label would lead quickly to finding the electronic roulette wheel.
Near the bottom of the second stack of boxes, a label did just that. Xavier and I opened the box, dug around and found something quite unexpected.
What a blast from my past! 1977 to put a point on it.
Needless to say, Xavier flipped out with excitement, like a starving dog at last allowed to devour meat when I got it untangled and handed it over to him.
As an added bonus, when we put batteries in it, it did not work. I say added bonus because now Xavier and I could troubleshoot it. One of those teaching moments to test Xavier's command of what he learned from his simple circuit a few days ago.
We got it up and working in short order, and Xavier has had a lot of fun with it. He even dug out his Hot Wheels to play with it (Hot Wheels rarely interest him now; he's all about building things).
As for the roulette wheel, we found that in the same box. Xavier played with that until the speaker wires broke free of the board. Dad needs to break out his soldering iron!