A Fun Project: TV-B-Gone
OK, so I had a pretty full junk box with bits and pieces, and a sorta full parts bin, when I came across TV-B-Gone. It’s a small kit that gives you soldering practice and gets you familiar with electronic circuitry. Since I had all the parts except for the circuit board and microcontroller, that’s all I ordered. It took longer to gather all the parts than it took to solder it all together!
Over at Adafruit, they offer a complete kit with board and all parts you’ll need. But, if you really don’t want to mess with learning how to solder, jump over to Amazon and get a TV-B-Gone Universal TV Power Remote Control Keychain for about the same cost.
Now the fun part is going to your favorite (or not-so-favorite) TV retailer and browsing around the wall of 3 to 4 dozen TV’s and just driving them wacky as a whole group of televisions go blank! You start to feel sorry for the poor young clerk as he goes around turning them back on. . .and on. . .and on. . .and doing it all over again.
More stuff for the beginner articles:
