Humans making stuff

The maker movement robustly engages kids.

To those who have come along since, it is impossible to relate the excitement, the fluorescent electric buzz of growing up in the 1950s.

It hadn't been that long since the rural poor had lived on hardscrabble farms with hand-pumped water, outhouses, and kerosene lanterns. Some still did.

But we were on the cusp of monumental change. AT&T had invented the transistor, we soon had hand-portable radios and heard tales of electronic computers projecting presidential election results. TV sets, fine as any piece of furniture, were quickly supplanting radios as the figurative family hearth.

The days of propeller-driven aircraft became numbered. Jet airliners began to leave contrails high across the blue domed sky and futuristic Air Force fighters delighted air show attendees and model builders alike.

The first artificial satellites blasted into Earth orbit to the intense excitement of kids who had been reading Heinlein, Asimov, and Clarke. These great authors were serious futurists who prepared our minds for incredible advances to come, usually teaching real physics in the process.

After thousands of years of very gradual advances, it seemed that technology was exploding in waves around us, driven by a deep understanding of electromagnetic forces and a burgeoning electrical power infrastructure. This was a thrilling time to be a kid, to soak it all in.

We were inveterate tinkerers. We made go-karts from scratch using old, rebuilt lawn mower engines. We built crystal radio sets which were powered by the very radio waves they teased from the night sky. We learned to make electromagnets using large dry-cell batteries and hand-wound, iron-core coils. We learned how to repair TV and radio sets which suffered from burnt-out vacuum tubes.

And as the 50s melded into the 60s, we built more ambitious radio receivers and transmitters with sophisticated antenna systems. Our thoughts turned to computers and we learned how to build flip flops and memory devices using transistors.

We demanded coaxial cables, connectors, discrete components (resistors, capacitors, transistors) and whole kits – TV sets, short-wave radio receivers, and elementary computers – all to be assembled, soldered, tested, and put to use by the hobbyist. These parts and kits came from a thriving, growing hobbyist marketplace – Heathkit and Radio Shack served as pluperfect examples.

So it was with great regret and nostalgia when we heard the news that RadioShack had declared bankruptcy.

Started by two brothers in 1921, Radio Shack was initially located in downtown Boston. It offered a retail store and mail order catalogue operation largely to supply the rapidly growing field of amateur (“ham”) radio. Surviving over 90 years was no mean feat, but RadioShack (the final name) eventually succumbed to financial failure. Its peak success occurred in the 1970s, as it catered to the needs of citizens band (CB) radio hobbyists. Along the way, the firm tried many business models, offering proprietary Tandy Radio Shack (TRS) computers and then betting heavily on smartphones. But the do-it-yourself market was allowed to languish, and some feel this inattention was a major cause of failure.

Because the do-it-yourselfers and hobbyists and tinkerers are still out there. Today we call them “makers.” And RadioShack missed the maker movement.

Makers are a wide and varied demographic made up of kids of all ages. Students, executives, engineers, house wives, just about anyone who is a kid at heart. The only requirement is to have an intense curiosity in how things work and a desire to build stuff.

Technology has changed dramatically since the 1950s. Makers obviously don’t test and replace vacuum tubes in a failed radio, but they interact with a whole new set of technologies.

Makers write code and build computer games. Makers create automatic guidance systems for drones. Makers use 3D printers to create prosthetic hands and jewelry and  musical instruments, and openly share the computer files that define these objects. (Sharing is a fundamental attribute of the maker movement).

But makers also created squishy circuits, enabling one to build basic logic circuits from batteries and homemade dough. Or plush toy DNA molecules with magnetic strips that allow them join and assemble only into chemically correct combinations.

The modern maker movement appears to have a strong dose of STEM (science, technology, engineering, math) with an equally robust measure of art to boot. Perhaps STEAM would be more appropriate.

It’s not surprising that our do-it-yourself spirit is still strong. Humans make stuff. 

Perhaps the reconstituted RadioShack, as it emerges from bankruptcy, should look back to its roots.