Young people are 'lost generation' who can no longer fix gadgets, warns professor

The Telegraph ^ | 28DEC14 | Sarah Knapton

[familyop]

Danielle George, Professor of Radio Frequency Engineering, at the University of Manchester, claims that the under 40s expect everything to ‘just work’ and have no idea what to do when things go wrong...This year’s Royal Institution Christmas Lectures are entitled ‘Sparks will fly: How to hack your home’ she is hoping it will inspire people to think what else they can do with common household objects...Ideas include using a magnifying glass and shoe box to turn a mobile phone into a rudimentary projector; how to use tin foil to make too small batteries fit correctly and how to turn a bottle of water into a lamp.

[cva66snipe]

BTW at the nursing home we had gas dryers. The washers were the pain. The detergent would eat you up if you weren’t careful.

[Heart-Rest]

For some reason, this thread brought this old song to mind...

"One Piece At A Time" - Johnny Cash

[mrsmith]

Made service calls on laundry equipment for a while and 90% of the problems I had to solve were caused by the installers not the on-site maintenance personnel.

Learned electrical formulas from the ASROC manuals my father used to bring home to study. Don’t think that system ever worked reliably in the sixties. Must have been very frustrating for him.

[ottbmare]

Yes, we baby-boomers don’t know a thing about this stuff! We have to call in somebody if the toilet acts up!!! How different from my father’s generation.

I dunno. I'm a lady, I'm a boomer, and I have more tools than Home Depot. Much depends on your lifestyle and your location. Personally I live in dread of not being able to fix stuff, because that makes me so helplessly dependent.

[familyop]

I remember that. Funny song. :-)

[Morgana]

arth ping

[Tired of Taxes]

ANOTHER REASON TO HOMESCHOOL

This ping list is for the “other” articles of interest to homeschoolers about education and public school. This can occasionally be a fairly high volume list. Articles pinged to the Another Reason to Homeschool List will be given the keyword of ARTH. (If I remember. If I forget, please feel free to add it yourself)

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[driftdiver]

Is that his fault or that of his parents?

[Tired of Taxes]

When I was growing up, young men worked on their own cars and fixed things themselves.

Today, though, young people do build their own computers and do other things. For example, robotics is popular these days.

“But there is now a big maker community who are thinking hard about what we do with all of these gadgets. They are remaking and repurposing things.

Many homeschool (and other) families today are involved in the "Maker Movement" - which involves do-it-yourself hobbies, etc. Anyone - homeschooled, schooled, whatever - can find more information at Make Magazine.

[FreedomPoster]

I’ve done timing belts on cars; oil changes and brake jobs are trivial.

I’ve built desktop PCs from components for 30+ years.

I recently replaced batteries in some iPhones to extend the life of the devices.

Home wiring is easy. I have a working knowledge of the NEC for residential application.

That’s just for starters.

In short, I am not the guy this article is about.

[HandyDandy]

My father built the Heathkit color tv (with remote!). Took him a month. Funny thing though, he was never interested in watching it.

[HandyDandy]

One of my early prototypes was when I turned my bicycle into a chopper. I used a hacksaw to saw the front forks off of my sisters bike. The hacksaw was one of my earliest and mostly used tools (it was my fathers, really). I turned my football helmet into a “quarterbacks” helmet by cutting of the excess face caging. Nowadays, of course, my go-to is the Sawsall, which I affectionately refer to as the Solves-all.

[ansel12]

I like that “solves-all”, the next time you do a helmet, try a grinder, it works well for something like that also.

[MaxMax]

I learned to fix every appliance in the home, even the refrig. I also learned to remodel the kitchen.
I learned young how to build the house, run the plumbing, string the electrical and grow a garden.
I even learned to build my own powerful computer for top 3d games on the cheap.

I also learned to rebuild a car, paint it and drop a nice cam in for that extra power.

The first step it trying...