
Now bear in mind I attempted to take MIT's 6.002x class before my brain took an enormous sidetrack and instead ended up with a comparative analysis with Stanford's Coursera. While I did find out what a high-voltage pickle looked like, my understanding of Thevenin voltage is limited to indecipherable algebra illustrating the "Thin Mint voltage" of a circuit. I generally don't know what I'm doing, and exploding diodes are not a rare occurrence. It took me considerable research before coming to understand what the three pins of a MOSFET are responsible for. To this day I cannot quite grasp why a pull-down resistor is required for normal operation (even when there is no "bad wiring"). I need simple, otherwise something is going to end up charred and melted.

Conveniently enough, when I placed my initial SparkFun order I also slipped in a Raspberry Pi - Model B as well. In the spirit of teaching electronics while remaining completely selfish, I justified the purchase by teaching Python programming using Minecraft while experimenting with GPIO programming on the sly. I was able to have moderate success teaching Python; I constructed a small lesson plan using Martin O'Hanlon's API tutorial as a reference. That turned into a good weekend software development lesson, however I didn't get as much traction with that project as I did with the bristlebots. Luckily for my ulterior motives, I now had a general purpose postcard computer for more breadboard projects. Several tiny wires later, I was able to get a Python script to blink an LED on a breadboard. Between vibrating toothbrush heads and a $40 miniscule flashing light, I started to brainstorm bigger things.
Now I'm getting back into 6.002x - Circuits & Electronics and starting over again. I'm much more engaged given this new context - and will likely take the class MUCH slower than the real-time course would otherwise allow. Should be fun.