a hands-on electronics set · eight issues

The Workbench Series

Eight short field guides for the salvage bench — from a fistful of parts to a machine that senses and decides. Each issue stands alone; together they cover the whole field, and they interlock.

salvage · build · measure · repeat — most of it runs on a battery and a good idea

The eight issues
No. 7 · foundation

Parts & Building Blocks

The five or six components everything is made of — and the little circuits you build from each.

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No. 6 · feed it

Power & Batteries

Sources, regulators, cells, and caps — clean power in, and how not to start a fire.

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No. 5 · the brain

Microcontrollers & Code

The chip that reads the sensors and drives the actuators. Blink to robot brain.

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No. 4 · the senses

Sensors & Signals

Light, heat, motion, distance, sound, touch — how a circuit perceives the world.

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No. 2 · make it spin

Small Electric Motors

Salvage, spin, generate — fans, rovers, plotters, and a motor run backwards.

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No. 3 · make it move

Electromagnets & Solenoids

Coils that pull, switch, clamp, strike, and sing — relays, latches, speakers.

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No. 1 · the wild card

The Slayer Exciter

The simplest Tesla coil there is — one transistor, two coils, a flame of plasma. Full field manual.

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No. 8 · the meta-issue

Tools & the Bench

Not a thing to build — what you build everything with. The iron, the meter, the habits.

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How the series connects
No. 6 power feeds everything No. 5 microcontroller read · decide · drive No. 4 sensors the world in in No. 7 parts — the atoms drive No. 2 motors spin & move No. 3 coils pull & switch No. 1 slayer exciter high-voltage wild card No. 8 tools & bench — what you build all of it with

Read it left to right: No. 6 powers No. 5, which reads No. 4 and drives No. 2 and No. 3 — all assembled from No. 7's parts, on No. 8's bench, with No. 1 as the high-voltage wild card off to the side. Build one project that uses every issue and you've built a robot.

Where to start

New to the bench

Start with the fundamentals, get power and a brain, then make something happen.

7 parts → 8 tools → 6 power →
5 microcontroller → 4 sensors →
2 motors / 3 coils

Here for the sparks

Go straight for the wild card — it needs almost nothing else — then double back for the rest.

1 slayer exciter → 7 parts →
8 tools → 6 power → the rest

the workbench series · eight issues · salvage, build, measure, repeat · the meter is the last word