This week we had a guest lecture/workshop by Mitch Altman, founder of Cornfield electronics and a U of I alumni! He is also the creator of “TV-Be-Gone” and co-founder of Noisebridge, a SF hackerspace.

Mitch started off with a short presentation of himself before leading into the soldering tutorial.

^Materials that we are working with.

While I’ve done some basic soldering before, this was an eye opening experience for me. When working on soldering for my projects I kind of went into it blindly, not understanding the concepts behind it and how to actually solder. Mitch taught us the proper way to solder, by holding the wire straight and below the soldering iron so that it would actually melt into the place we want it to be at, as well as holding the iron in place for a couple of seconds so that it has time to melt into the crevices. He also taught us the smoke emanating from the wire is due to the sap contained within the wire evaporating as it melts.

Being able to get hands on is something i appreciate the most in this class. Being a business major means that I rarely get to work on stuff as exciting as this, and I am really thankful for this chance. Now that I know how to solder properly, I look forward to being able to apply my knowledge into making bigger and better props that has more functions and features!