Page 84 - Analog Circuit Design Art, Science, and Personalities

Tom Hornak

Figure 8-12.
The transition
pulse generator
+ C-- HIGH at time t4.
-. LOW
cs1 Q Q-2 cs3Q

young children in our country who are intelligent and attracted to electronics but
who have nobody around to supply the basics in a form that is easy to digest on
their level of comprehension. Many laudable efforts are taking place that attempt to
help children to visualize natural phenomena: the San Francisco and San Diego
Exploratoria are two. But there, when attempting to cover all sciences, electronics
is necessarily a small part of the whole. There are plans to build a similar permanent
exposition devoted mostly to electronics in Silicon Valley. I pleaded for the instal-
lation of simple visualizations of, for example, how a transistor works, as opposed
to trying to impress the young visitors with giant models of million-transistor
chips. I believe that an indifferent child visiting out of superficial curiosity or com-
pulsion will not get hooked by either, while the infomiation-starved gifted kid
could be helped very much by pushing him or her one rung higher on the ladder of
understanding
We are constantly reminded that, due to the expected demographic development
in our country, we will be short of electronic talent in the near future if we don’t
succeed in exciting interest in electronics in more children. By supplying easy-to-
visualizc basic information through properly written books, proper expositions.
ant1 last but not least, personal interaction, we could perhaps increase the number of
talented children hooked by electronics in their early age, and, it is hoped, turn them
into devoted executors of this art, as we are ourselves.

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