My Daughter builds an 8 bit fignition computer.

I am one proud dad.
Today my 9 year old daughter tested the first computer ever built from scratch by anyone in our family.
I bought a fignition kit from Julz for her, for Christmas, and a couple of days ago we sat down to build it together.
She has never done any soldering, or assembled anything electronic before in her life, but she always watches me over my shoulder fascinated by what I am doing.

The kit comes with a PCB and 2 bags of about 40 components and some very comprehensive and exceptionally well written instructions.

http://i94.photobucket.com/albums/l1...ignition01.jpg

At first I showed her what to do, and with a little prompting she took to the soldering like a duck to water.

http://i94.photobucket.com/albums/l1...ignition06.jpg

This is an example of the very first things she ever soldered in.

http://i94.photobucket.com/albums/l1...ignition07.jpg

She was very methodical, and studious, applying the flux, inserting the components, checking their positions and details twice, soldering them in, checking the solder joints and re-checking the component.

http://i94.photobucket.com/albums/l1...ignition11.jpg

Once it as completed, the board was cleaned and then placed in my airing cupboard to dry.

http://i94.photobucket.com/albums/l1...ignition13.jpg

The most tedious job, was then testing all the connections. The instructions list every point and it's respective connections, and it was easy (if very boring) to sit and check that all the components were connected correctly.

http://i94.photobucket.com/albums/l1...ignition14.jpg

This is the second test with the IC's installed this time. No pops or smoke is a good thing! :)

http://i94.photobucket.com/albums/l1...ignition17.jpg

This is the first time we fired it up connected to the TV, and as you can tell she is delighted! As was I. :D

We haven't done any programming on it yet, that comes later, but at least we know the little 8 button keyboard works!

We popped into town and got a small enclosure to house it in, and with a little modification it fits perfectly.

http://i94.photobucket.com/albums/l1...ignition19.jpg

http://i94.photobucket.com/albums/l1...ignition18.jpg

We both had a tremendous amount of fun doing this, and she is rightly, very pleased with what she has done. It is a very worthwhile project and great for an absolute beginner.
A couple of details about the system itself:

• It's an 8 bit system using a version of the Forth language as used by the Jupiter Ace.
• At it's core is an Atmel AVR microcontroller
• A mighty 8Kb RAM
• A bounteous 384Kb Flash storage.

I saw this at replay, and the chap who developed this, Julz, was there promoting the system. Unfortunately I didn't have much time to speak with him on the day, but managed to get hold of a kit from his website.
Fignition
There is also a Google group HERE which is quite active.
If you are looking for a fun, small, interesting project that is easy to do for even a beginner, then you cannot go wrong here. Best few quid I have spent in a while. :thumbsup:

Just awesome! My congrats to her :thumbsup:

Superb! And nice pics of the task. :thumbsup:

Holy crap! Most kids have enough trouble playing video games well when they're 9.

Great stuff, well done! :thumbsup:

How much does she charge for re-capping an A500 board?

Awesome stuff indeed :thumbsup:

Congrats mate, remember you said she would be doing this and what a great job! :thumbsup:

Great teacher and top student combination hey? :D

Awesome and Adorable!

Wow - she was using separate flux? That makes her a more advanced solderer than me! :D

AWESOME job :bowdown:

I'm really impressed..... nine years old?...... You have a daughter with a great future :thumbsup:

That's so sweet and AWESOME! :)

That's a very worthy soldering Padawan you have there, Phil.....

:bowdown::bowdown::bowdown:

Great!!!:bowdown:

I hope my little daughter will do this in about nine years, too! :thumbsup:

Looks like SDG has got some serious competition there :D

Dave G :cool:

:cool:

So are you going let her have a go doing my GameGear when I eventually get round to sending it

:thumbsup: For Female know how, Jeri Ellsworth would be proud

Thats great stuff phil and congrats to you daughter it looks great

How very special. :nod:

this takes me back to my childhood,great stuff.

its a shame more schools dont do this as part of the curriculum these days.

Great work there! Very well done and so neat too! :cool:
I think this thread throughly deserves an awesome seal of approval!!

Just goes to show how much we underestimate kids these days...good for you for introducing her to this, and tell her good job from all of us :)

This thread is simply awesome, so much win.
:bowdown:

Exceptional teamwork and workmanship, congratulations. :thumbsup:

Just make sure to get her hooked on the Amiga and electronics design. That way when we are all geriatrics we'll still be getting new Amiga toys to play with. :)

Wow I hope My kids (when I eventually have them) are that good with computers and hackery.

I would be so proud to call her my daughter :thumbsup:

Wow, that's fantastic!! I hope my daughter grows up like that!

I am starting young, she's now 21 months old and here is a picture of her helping daddy disassembling a PC. She looks incredibly concentrated, unfortunatly the picture doesn't show she is actually holding a screwdriver in her hand.... :D (proud)

Attachment 21385

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Tahoe

Wow, that's fantastic!! I hope my daughter grows up like that!

I am starting young, she's now 21 months old

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my 23 month old has only come to the stage he loves touchscreens. I'll introduce him to programming later on. He'll be hard pressed not to catch the bug at some point, given his fathers addiction.

WOW! Great work Phils Daughter! Very neat and tidy soldering and component position there.

Maybe one of them Fignitions is what I need to figure out how to program, it looks fun!

Really great idea because you get to build the machine then program it!

Nice one mate! How cool is that, you both must be really chuffed!

excellent,I'm very impressed :-)

let us all know how you get on with the computer too :-)

lovely :)

- Whaou !!

Great Idea! These kind of projects are great for increasing self-confidence.

My kid actually learned how to solder before he learned to write his own name. I'll also throw a few kits to him to play with. Let's see what happens. :lol:

Way to go! :thumbsup:

Someone's got to build new hardware when we're too old... :lol:

I agree! What a wonderful bit of kit for young engineers in training. :) She did a wonderful job with the soldering!

Heather

It's such great fun doing stuff (that we enjoy too) with our kids eh Phil? My daughter and i had some great fun when she learned some BASIC programming on that old Beeb I fired over to you but this is taking it to another level! Well done indeed mini r0jaws!

John

Thanks guys, I showed her the thread and all your comments, and she was chuffed to bits. Although a little embarrassed by all the attention. :)

@John
I still have the disc, I'm sure I kept the program too. I won't be wiping it for the foreseeable future. I'll probably even use it when we display the Master again, especially as that was the whole point of the Beeb, to get youngsters programming.

I'm very impressed by this Phil,you must be very proud of her... Well done :-)

For those of you interested in this, the site is back up again.

Fignition

Looks like the problem has been resolved. :)

[EDIT] Some members from overseas have contacted me about getting hold of the kit, as on eBay it is UK only. I received an email from Julz to say that you can buy directly from the website, using PayPal, and he ships worldwide. The board also supports PAL and NTSC, so will work fine across the Atlantic too.

Quote:

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The board also supports PAL and NTSC

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Ooohhhh.. I want one now.


Later,
dabone

Thats really impressive, esp. for a nine year old. My partner also bought me one for Christmas along with some soldering kit, but haven't had the chance to use them yet. Looks like it shall be fun!

So nice !

Successful creation of a geek at such an early age. Congratulations! ;)

:lol:

Just remind her never to throw it away or lose it in a house move. Otherwise she'll be hunting for one of them in 25 years time and end up paying the price of a small car to get that memory back!

Inspirational

It's so easy to forget how things have 'moved on' since we were kids ..

I'll need to organise something like this for my kids, congrats to you both! :)

Nice one dad and daughter! :)

I see a possible electronics engineer there:thumbsup::thumbsup:

:coffee:

Your daughter has done an excellent job there Phil, you have every right to feel very proud :thumbsup:

You also know that there is a down side to all this don't you :roll:
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You will be chasing after her in a year or two for a loan of your tools when she has borrowed them (unless you buy her some of her own for birthdays etc) :thumbsup:

@r0jaws
Possibly another project - http://www.worldofspectrum.org/forum...ad.php?t=37746

You could you get your daughter to make one of these for me - her soldering looks much better than mine :)

....and just like that, I have a new project on the way (hopefully) :)

Cheers fatbob!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by r0jaws

....and just like that, I have a new project on the way (hopefully) :)

Cheers fatbob!

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Very cool indeed.

I've just added a board to zetr0's order as well :lol:
To good to resist building that.
We should consider a bulk buy of the logic chips from Futurelec as they are a good cheap source.

TC :thumbsup:

Any updates? what is she up to these days? Any more projects? :lol:

Revisiting this has actually sparked an old curiosity of mine...

I'd love to understand, and I mean truly understand, how we get from a few bits of silicon and components to computation and an on screen display.

Can anyone recommend any reading material that will walk me through an understanding? I should be due a bursary for books sometime next month. :thumbsup: