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Comment by kken | Hacker News Reader

I think it has never been easier to enter electronics (especially embedded stuff) than it is now. You can get a starter set including RPI/Arduino/Breakboard/Components for less than $100. Also, with a breadboard no soldering iron is needed.

Try chemistry, mining, process engineering or even mechanical engineering in comparison?

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Chemistry takes some initiative these days, but the dark age after the golden age of chemistry sets is pretty much over.

Mining, I dunno, buy a shovel? Hobby prospecting - sluicing and panning for gold, mostly - was still a thing in the rural west when I was a kid. I'd bet you could find a forum or something if you searched.

Process engineering, I don't know what you'd want to do as a hobbyist.

Mechanical engineering - 3d printers and chinese machine tools are affordable. It's never been easier to buy small parts and fasteners. The free finite element simulation packages are getting pretty good.

Made me think of Cody's lab guy's sweeping some dirt from a highway and pulling palladium out.

Totally agree. Electronics has never been easier thanks to low-cost microcontrollers like the ESP32. Most of the "electronics" you'll be doing is simply plumbing--connecting the GPIO outputs of your microcontroller to whatever peripherals you want to support. It's a good gateway into the wider world of electronics.

I am curious what the next thing up is that is more "legit". At this time I've used Arduino/ESP/Teensy. I bought an STM32 and Beaglebone but wondering what does something like a Boston Dynamics dog use? Probably a full on processor like i7.

Edit: oh it uses i5 with Ubuntu ha, plus separate graphics for the AI part

It's wonderfully easy to enter advanced electronics nowadays, but has accessibility really kept up with the rate of advancement (electronics getting smaller and more complicated)?

We bought one of this kit for our daughter when she was ~10 year old. It has a the explanation of a few projects and the components to put in the breakboard. She liked it, and we bought some additional components, like a 7 segment display and leds of additional colors.

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