Hey. What’s up. Acknowledging reverse head-nod.

Now that the man greetings are out of the way… Hi! I’m Aaron Dunlap, and I’ll be your dutiful guest blogger for this theme week. Since this is an electronics/DIY themed week, Dethroner obviously went out and found themselves a world-renowned expert in electrical engineering and author of several electronics textbooks including Exposed Wires And You: Not Dying (Unless You Intended To), Ohm My God, It Hertz!, and Join the Resistance: Metal Oxide Resistors Explained.

Actually, no, that’s not me. That’s not me at all. I’m not an expert at electricity or engineering by any measure. That’s not what you guys want, anyway. You don’t need some Ph.D. here explaining Ohm’s Law when you’ve never picked up a soldering iron.

What I am is an expert in going from zero to enthusiast in 10 minutes or less. Just a few months ago, my collective electronics experience consisted of installing a mod chip on our PlayStation with my brother, following some poorly-written instructions and breathing in too many solder fumes. I’d see all these modders and DIYers posting their creations on the internet(s) and feel tiny pangs of jealousy in the pit of my stomach. I wished that could be me, but what did I know? Nothing, I thought.

But there came a time when I was between sessions of pretending I was a college student and had too much free time. I was sick of my Treo cell phone/PDA always running down to a half-charge just from a normal day’s use and wanted a way to keep it powered on the cheap. I’d seen someone make a battery-powered FireWire iPod charger in an Altoids tin online, and I wondered how I could make that idea work for me.

Before I started with that, I wanted to first prove to myself that I was at least semi-handy with electronics. I spent some time researching simple circuit designs, bought myself my first soldering iron and designed a very simple LED flashlight. After a few tries, I’d built such a flashlight. I had something that I could hold in my hand that I built. Me. Just some guy. It was an amazingly empowering feeling, and gave me the boost I needed to build that charger for my phone.

The biggest problem I faced was that there were no decent resources for me to find out what I was doing or to get the parts I needed. My options for learning were either flash videos made for kids about how batteries work, or my older brother’s (the electrical engineer) old college physics textbooks. Neither were much help. It took some time, but through some trial-and-error and a lot of useless reading, I’d designed a USB charging device powered by a single 9-volt battery. Once I’d tracked down some manufacturers and suppliers of the individual components I’d need, I was able to build my charger at great (well, relatively) financial cost.

I’d had to buy the parts in bulk, but once I’d build my charger, what was I going to do with all the rest of the parts? I had a dumb idea that maybe there were people like me who would have liked to skip the headache and get the parts and the know-how from one place. I thought maybe I’d be able to bag everything up as a “DIY kit” and sell them along with some plainly-written instructions. If I sold through the 25 I already had on-hand, I’d be happy to have broken even.

Just over a year later, and I’ve sold between five and six thousand kits, plus thousands of kits for my LED flashlight. The response has been incredible, and has demonstrated to me that there are thousands (and definitely more out there) of people who’ve been wanting to join the world of the electronics-enabled, but never had the motivation before. I started The Electroids Co. on the principle that anybody can become a maker, anybody can feel the empowerment of building something that works, if they just had the resources to do it easily.

If anybody knows about finally getting off your butt and jumping into electronics, it’s me; and that is why I’m pleased to be your guest blogger this week. This week I’ll be walking you through simple circuits using my LED flashlight as a demonstration, showing you how my 9v USB Charger works, pointing out some cool “mods” (cool ways to assemble my kits besides how you’re “supposed to”), and generally giving out some beginner’s advice for electronics-making. There will also be contests, with giveaways. Giveaways like iPods, not stupid t-shirts or something.

So, if you’ve always been the guy who wanted to try your hand at electronics but never thought you could, I encourage you to pick up a 9v USB Charger Kit or an LED Flashlight Kit (or both) and prove yourself wrong.