The Geek 100 Pt. 5: Science and Electronics

See the whole series: The Geek 100

This is a list of 100 basic things and skills every geek should have. I've broken this series up into five parts. Let's face it: a list of 100 things would be tedious to wade through. Over the rest of the week, look for twenty more skills to show up daily. The skills assume you have done it in the past and can remember how to do it right now (or, like a good Geek, you've jotted it down in one of your notebooks). Having it in your personal notebook is okay. Scrambling to the Internet means you don't have the skill... yet.

Science. Every geek should be able to:

1. Build a dry-ice bomb
   
2. Build a gas-turbine engine from junkyard parts
   
3. Build a usable battery from household materials
   
4. Build an electric motor/generator from household materials
   
5. Build some form of a rocket motor
   
6. Comprehend and express orders of magnitude
   
7. Make a non-Newtonian "Oobleck" fluid
   
8. Make an explosion using only a few plastic containers, electricity and water
   
9. Know how to make hot-packs or cold-packs with simple chemical reactions
   
10. Use the Scientific Method
    

Electronics. Every geek should be able to:

1. Access debug mode on a mobile phone (preferably your own)
   
2. Build a simple FM transmitter
   
3. Build logic gates with discrete components
   
4. Burn an (E)EPROM
   
5. Calibrate and read an oscilloscope
   
6. Program a microcontroller
   
7. Properly use a digital multimeter to measure electric current
   
8. Solder surface-mount components
   
9. Use a logic probe
   
10. Use a schematic diagram to assemble a simple circuit from parts
    

See the whole series: The Geek 100