Personal Creative Electronics Coaching with Acid Solder Club
Besides my personal daily practices, I teach both beginners and professionals how to begin with working with electronics for creatives, or how to take further steps into electronic intstruments and interfaces via workshops or personal assistance via coaching sessions.
This can be a personal trajectory where you can learn:
- Soldering and working with different types of hardware devices (Oscilloscope, Lab Power Supply, Multimeter)
- Electronic components and their functions, Analog and Digital Circuits and connectivity possibilities
- Schematic reading and how to designing your own instruments and interfaces
- Ways of interaction using various inputs and outputs sensors and actuators such as motors
- Understand the basics of programming various microcontrollers such as Teensy, Arduino, Bare Conductive, Bela, RaspberryPi, ESP32
- Design PCB’s with KiCad and work on a case/form for your project
This personal coaching is really about what you want to learn within the realm of creative electronics, and we can check in together beforehand to see what sensors/interactions/interfaces you would like to design and with materials will come in handy to order.
It is possible to take multiple sessions over a longer period of time, or for custom plans make sure to contact me and we can work something out.
Want to learn more about these coaching sessions or sign up?! Let’s get in touch!
Basics of Electronics and Soldering
From knowing how to set up a decent soldering station, safety rules, dangerous hazards, and proper ventilation to component testing, circuit measuring, hardware debugging, and how to keep your spirits up when making mistakes.
Sensors and Microcontrollers
I work mostly with Arduino, Teens and Bare Conductive. Also sometimes with RaspberryPi and ESP. Reading sensor data and working with motors, solenoids, LDR, and capacitive touch are the things I recently work with and I enjoy programming microcontrollers for interactive installations or DIY synthesizer projects.
Hardware Hacking and Circuit Bending
Circuit bending and hardware hacking are some of the most fun and exciting ways to work with electronics. Even without extensive background knowledge about the workings of each component, you’re still able to re-create and rebuild amazing instruments and machines with just basic components. It’s thrilling to see new creations come to life from obsolete or broken electronics, and is an easy first step into getting familiarized with electronics.
Instrument and Interface Design
When you’re looking for advice for your (interactive) electronic installations or instruments and you need some help with co-designing the design and electronic infrastructure of your instrument, feel free to contact me about ideas, builds, or collaborations! I can give advice or help with tools or references to what you need and what things to look out for when designing all kinds of machines.
(Modular) Synth DIY
A few months back I’ve started building my own DIY modular synthesizer, and since then I’ve taken a deep dive into the basic building blocks of a synthesizer.
On the instagram you will find some of the modules I’ve built and where I sourced the information. Also with tips and tricks about DIY modular, soldering and testing, where to get parts, buy your kits, how to re-purpose a lot of components and how to build cases.
Schematic reading and PCB Design
Besides building circuits, I also teach in Reading Schematics, learning Electronic Components and their functions and how to design Stripboard layouts in DIYLC and make Printed Circuit Boards (PCB’s) with various software such as Fritzing and (soon) KiCad!
Contact me about giving a workshop/ skillslab/ prototype session with soldering and electronics for events and festivals!
Besides Acid Solder Club, I work as workspace employee and teacher on these subjects at the Hogeschool voor de Kunsten Utrecht (HKU) and the Sandberg Institute (SI) in Amsterdam with seminars, workshops and classes to students.
Veerle Pennock 