Paul K1YBE setup our Sixth Hands-On Radio Event last night and it was a great success.  There were 21 people present and enough helpers on hand so that there were 1 to 2 students at each table with a mentor.

The objective of the class was to practice basic soldering skills by soldering some resistors and ICs onto a prototype PCB, then to test a series LED resistor circuit.  That took about an hour to complete.  The remainder of the class, which wrapped up about 9:30 PM, involved assembling a Offset Mixer Attenuation board used for RDFing.  Most of these were completed and many were tested and found to be working.  The students had an opportunity to desolder components as the PCB had a silk-screen error that lead to a LED being installed backward.

As one might expect the age of some of the soldering equipment, and the solder itself lead to some issues.  Good, clean tools, and recognizing that solder has a shelf life (the rosin goes bad over time – 3 years per the manufacturer), was a valuable lesson.

Students and mentors at work assembling the Attenuator PCB (Mark and Mary in the foreground)

Many thanks to All Saints STEAM Academy for allowing them to use their facilities and to their Science and Math teacher Dr Mike Thombs, W9DAD (also a NCRC member).