For as many PCs and servers as I've built/repaired/hacked/modded, I know shockingly little about basic electronics. I can much wire up some nice pretty LEDs & 80mm fans, but beyond that... yeah, this could do me some good too.

I've been playing and working with electronics since grade school.
I'm not much for standing up front and teaching, but I'd be happy to
help out as a TA, or something.

so i'm *really* rusty, but one thing that made it all make sense to me, and i was able to use to explain it to some theatre students was explaining certain aspects as plumbing. i.e. psi in a pipe, pipe diameter, flow rate, valves, and then how all of that affects what a lawn sprinkler or shower head does... too much psi bursts your pipes, a fuse is an overpressure valve... etc

There's actually a Wikipedia page all about the hydraulic analogy of electricity. It's a pretty good model; it has its limits as does any model, but if you don't get carried away too much with it, it's probably one of the easiest ways to explain electricity.

Hey,

I'd like to be involved somehow as well. I have an E.E. degree, but my professional career has been in computer support. I am VERY interested in novel electronics projects.

There are basic electronics courses on the Internet; perhaps leaners could be directed to some existing tutorials in preparation for class.

I've had the following site as a browser favorite for quite a while:
http://amasci.com/amateur/elehob.html

A useful site linked from the above page is for Alex's Tutorials:
http://amasci.com/elehob/alexxtu.html

Color me interested. I used to play around with electronics when I was in grade school and high school, and still have my Radio Shack 150 Electronics Projects (or whatever the number is) Kit, plus freaking dozens of electronics books. ....I remember little. And my soldering skills were never stellar. But it would be nice to be able to put some nifty little blinky lights and sound effects into some props I'm building. Working effects.... good!

I had one of those Radio Shack Kits as well, dating back to the 70s... now there's not much left of it but the outer wooden box. I made a TV interference circuit with it, which caused noise on about every TV channel if the TV was within some small radius.

I've still got a lot of electronics books and I've kept all my E.E. books from college.

Somewhere boxed up I have the entire run of "Modern Electronics" magazine, which was published only for one or two years. An author named Forrest wrote on many incredible circuits using CMOS chips. He came up with some fantastic things for assisting handicapped persons; I seem to remember an infrared object detection circuit, for the blind, with transceivers placed on temple pieces of eyeglasses. It would be great if the TC Maker group could work on gadgets to assist the handicapped!

I would be down, both as a refresher and as a helper (I'm in the theoretical classes of EE now, not nearly as fun )

basic primer!
thats also a super cute vid from the 40's..
http://www.archive.org/details/principles_of_electricity

watch it with your kids even!