Electronics, Arduino, & Projects - 1-on-1 w/ Martin

Explore electronics, soldering, power and Arduinos to learn what powers the devices we use every day.

These classes are great to take with a friend in your bubble for a fun project experience, or to grow your skills for unique and interesting projects.

How It Works

Schedule your 1-on-1 session to grow your electronics knowledge, and if you're a member, become Hacker Lab certified to use our electronic studio 24/7. Not a member yet? Explore a free tour.

Martin offers a wide range of electronics based classes and projects, for both beginners and those wanting a bit more. When selecting your ticket, simply choose which class you'd like to take.

Please be aware: While we don't have any hard prerequisites for this series, we've left some notes where we think attendees might benefit from taking one class before another.

Martin can teach you (click to jump to description):

• Electronics & Electricity Basics
• Basic Soldering for Electronics
• Intro to Arduino and Microcontroller Programming
• Voltage Regulators: Adding Power to your Projects
• Open Workbench: Get Help with you Electronics Project

Please be aware: Most of our one-on-one classes require students to register at least 48 hours ahead of class time, after which they will be marked 'Not available'. Our regular cancellation policy of 48 hours of advance notice also applies.

New in May: Double Trouble Twosome-Tickets! We've added tickets for twosomes! Parent + child (15yo+), partners, couples, or BFFs that just live together. Sign up for a Twosome-Ticket if you and someone in your bubble want to take the class together. Please, no unaccompanied minors.

See below for the overviews of what each class covers:

If you are an absolute beginner to the wonderful world of electronics projects, start here.

Interested in creating an electronics or microcontroller project but have no idea how electricity works? This class is for you.

We'll cover the basic concepts associated with electronics and electricity: what a circuit is, what voltage, current, and resistance are, and how they relate to each other. We'll give you a primer in the basics for making electricity work for you.

This course is a fantastic first step prior to taking our electronics based courses, and an ideal baseline for anyone who wants to get into Arduino/Raspberry Pi projects.

We'll Cover:

• Build a circuit on a breadboard (and explain what those things are!)
• Learn about current, voltage, resistance, power, and how they relate to each other
• Cover the design considerations involved in creating basic circuits and using passive circuit elements.

What to bring & important information

• All equiment and materials needed for this class will be provided for you.
• This class serves as the certification class for the basic equipment (variable DC power supplies, oscilloscopes, multimeters, and components) in our electronics lab.

Made an electronics project but want it to be a bit more permanent? Breadboard starting to look like a bird's nest? Solder is your friend.

Take this class to learn the basics of through-hole soldering. Beginners are welcome! This class is for adults, but children aged 15 and older are welcome to accompany their parents.

This class covers the basics of through-hole soldering including setup, using solder wick and solder suckers, and preventing cold-joints.

This is a hands on class: attendees will assemble a small PCB based project by soldering on through-hole components.

We'll Cover:

• Safety when soldering
• What a soldering iron is
• What solder wick is, solder suckers are, and why you'll definitely need them at some point

What to bring & important info

• All equiment and materials needed for this class will be provided for you.
• This class serves as the certification class for the soldering stations in our electronics lab.

Arduino is a microcontroller (small computer) platform that makes it easy for users to give their electronics projects a brain! Arduino is also a great starting point for those wishing to learn embedded systems programming. It offers a near infinite variety of uses including robotics, game controllers, and IoT.

you will write, compile, upload, and run a simple Arduino sketch to control the blinking rate of an LED. There is a focus on understanding the structure of the code rather than simply copying and pasting premade examples. You will learn how Arduino Sketches (code) are structured, how to read values using the serial monitor, how to control the IO pins, & more. By the end of the class, you should be comfortable enough with an Arduino to develop more advanced circuits on your own.

We'll Cover:

• The various types of the most popular Arduino boards, their features, similarities, and differences.
• How to write, compile, and upload a sketch to an Arduino board.
• Arduino programming code structure and basic syntax.
• How to monitor values in the sketch using the serial monitor.

What to bring:

• Hacker Lab has Arduino UNOs, Breadboards, & component kits, however you may bring your own if you like/have one
• A basic knowledge of programming concepts and electronics is helpful, but not necessary. Consider taking our Electronics & Electricity Basics class prior to this class if you are completely new.
• If possible please bring a laptop with the Arduino IDE installed.
• We do have a small number of laptops on hand to loan out, but have found attendees are more likely to continue their Arduino journey if they use their own computer.

We recommend you take Electronics & Electricity Basics or have at least some electronics knowledge (you understand what Ohm's Law & the power equations are, and are familiar with resistors, capacitors, and inductors) prior to taking this class.

A standard USB 2.0 host port is only required to provide 500mA. If you want to go much higher than that, you'll need to stop using a laptop as your power source.

Almost all electronic projects include a voltage regulator of some sort. What are they, how they work, and which one is right for your project? This class will answer those questions while building a simple USB charger capable of charging a phone, powering an arduino, Raspberry Pi, or a similar device.

We'll Cover:

• What are voltage regulators and what types are available.
• What power considerations need to be taken.
• Designing with voltage regulators in mind.
• Building of a very simple USB charger.

What to bring

• Yourself!
• We recommend you take Electronics & Electricity Basics or have at least some electronics knowledge (You understand what Ohm's Law & The power equations are, and are familiar with resistors, capacitors, and inductors) prior to taking this class.

The open workbench is a sessions for students who want additional help with an electronics topic, or have a project of their own they'd like to work on with the guidance of Martin Mortensen, Hacker Lab Electronics Instructor. We suggest if you're new to electronics that you take one or more of Martin's other sessions too, however this is not required.

Martin won't do the project for you, but he will help point you in the right direction, give guidance on your project, and help solve problems you encounter.

You provide the project, the idea, and the motivation for some one-on-one help.

Important Info & What to Bring:

• An idea for what you want to work on, and anything else relevant to your project.

Important information for all classes:

• Please make sure to arrive 10-15 minutes early and sign our general release of liability agreement.
• Masks must be worn correctly while inside the facility.
• Do not come into the Lab if you have a cough, fever, or feel sick in the past 14 days.
• While electronics projects aren't particularly messy, the makerspace is a shop and thus full of wonderful ways to get stains and dirt on your clothes. Please dress appropriately, wear closed-toed shoes, tie back loose or long hair, and don't wear anything you don't mind getting a bit dirty.