Interview with Sean Westcott

Featured Engineer

Sean Westcott

Sean Westcott - IT administrator at MBP; Author and Electronics Enthusiast

How did you get into electronics/ engineering and when did you start?

I had the 101 electronics projects kit from Radio Shack when I was seven. I went on to deconstruct and rebuild a TV, a stereo, radio and anything else I could get my hands on. After high school, when I tried to be a rock star that there was more money in fixing other people’s equipment than in performing. I worked for a live sound company and in a recording studio and after I got married I went to a technical college to get a degree in electronic engineering technology.

What are your favorite hardware tools that you use?

My trusty DMM and my Weller soldering iron.

What are your favorite software tools that you use?

Microsoft Visual Studio.

What is the hardest/trickiest bug you have ever fixed?

Developing a testing procedure for the main control board on a T1 analyzer. We were manufacturing a board for a telecom company and we had to not only test the integrity of the circuit board but also its functionality which included writing software that simulated the real world test environment.

What is on your bookshelf?

The Internet of Things, a couple of XNA books, guitar tablature for Van Halen, Rush and Metallica, the latest volume in the Game of Thrones series and copies of my latest book, The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Electronics 101.

Do you have any tricks up your sleeve?

For writing, work with a good partner and a great editor and for designing both hardware and software build in small steps, test, test, test before moving on to the next step.

What has been your favorite project?

The Netduino controlled robot that we built in our book. It was a great opportunity to do some programming in C#, working with collision avoidance and motors and getting excited about the hobbyist potential of microcontrollers. The people in the Netduino forums and the Sparkfun forums were a great resource and source of inspiration.

Do you have any note-worthy engineering experiences?

When I was very new, I accidentally touched the two leads with my thumb and forefinger on a step-up transformer and quickly learning not to do that again.

What are you currently working on?

Planning some new projects to feature on my more electronics oriented blog, BasementHackers.com including some wireless home automation projects, guitar amplifiers and a followup and much improved version of a DeadMau5 head that I worked on with my son (the first one demonstrated a need to improve my softer skills as the electronics worked fine but let’s just say there was a lot of glue involved with the fabric).

Why did you decide to start Digitally Daunted?

A couple years ago, after watching a CBC news report on people being taken advantage of by unscrupulous computer repair shops I told my wife that someone should write a book that gives unsophisticated computer users the confidence to be better users and consumers of technology. She responded with, well why don’t we? Together we wrote, Digitally Daunted: The Consumer’s Guide to Taking Control of the Technology in Your Life which is like a phrasebook and primer to the whole range of consumer tech. We promised in the book to keep the conversation going and between the two of us we continue to write about technology in plain language without talking down to our readers and covering issues that are of interest to all tech users.

What was your goal in writing The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Electronics?

Like Digitally Daunted set out to do for TVs, computers and other consumer tech, we wanted to inspire people to not be intimidated by the nuts and bolts of electronics, to recapture the excitement I felt when I first starting making my first electronics projects. We’d buy Heath kits and create working devices that drove me to learn more. Over the past few decades, I saw a decline in the popularity of electronics as a hobby, especially among older kids. There has always been hacker communities in short wave radio, in RC hobbies and computers but as mass produced electronics got smaller, more powerful and cheaper many would-be hobbyists would just buy tech, consume it, instead of building it.

Over the past few years, we’re seeing a renaissance in building electronics for fun. Maybe it started with BattleBots on TV or Lego Mindstorms, but there was a culture that came up around hands-on. Powerful microntrollers, sophisticated sensors, accessible programming environments all allow us to customize and invent new devices. People are becoming Makers. And like my own transition from kit maker to electronics professional, we want to help those who are getting a taste of creating to learn the theory that drives it all, how the components all work together and encourage them to innovate and invent the next big thing.

What could the electronics community do to increase interest in STEM disciplines?

We need to reach out to younger kids and kids from diverse communities to get them excited about technology, so they can see how science and math can be used to help them create, how it connects to real things. Before they choose an academic path in middle and high school, let them see how wave forms, the dreaded Algebra and atomic theory all relate to the technology that they already love.