Teaching soldering skills

[Marvin Johnston]

> On 2/17/10, Tony Duell <ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>>> >>  From trying to teach soldering, the
>>> >> unforgiving nature leads to student frustration.
>> >
>> > I am suprised. I've taught dozens of people to solder over the years, and
>> > every one had success within half an hour.
> 
> More particularly, I've taught several people over the past few months
> how to solder at a few workshops.  I've had mixed results.  All were
> enthusiastic, but not all were, in the old vernacular, "mechanically
> inclined".

A friend of mine was a 3rd grade teacher, and one or two of us would go 
in and help them build code practice oscillators. We really didn't have 
much trouble with solder joints after we showed them how to preheat the 
joint and apply the solder.

The biggest problem at first was getting them to touch the tip to the 
joint long enough to heat it to the point the solder would melt when 
applied.

The second biggest problem was getting them to realize that the color 
codes on the resistors actually meant something as to where they were 
inserted :).