Nonvisual Soldering Workshop at NYU ITP

Building a Continuity Tester 

People

Instructor

Dr. Joshua Miele

Facilitators

Chancey Fleet
Tom Igoe
Lauren Race

Technical Producer

Rob Ryan

Volunteers

Veronica Alfaro
Arnab Chakravarty
Huiyi Chen
Regine Gilbert
Rashida Kamal
Aidan Nelson
Pedro Oliveira
Willie Payne
Anita Perr
David Rios
Jesse Simpson
Yeseul Song
Trae Winter

Location

NYU ITP

Photos

Jean Miele
Chunhan Chen
Yuanyuan Wang

All attendees agreed to have their photos taken for public documentation.

About

Soldering is an essential skill for prototyping and building electronics. There is plenty of discussion about addressing the STEM gap for blind and low vision (BLV) learners but, in the spirit of NYU ITP’s focus on hands-on learning, soldering experts and NYU faculty sought to take it one step further and put tools in hands.  A long conference table, full of attendees, is set up with individual soldering stations with soldering irons, fans, vices, and soldering mats. In the foreground one attendee guides another's hand across their circuit board held by a vice at their soldering station. A torso shot of an attendee against handling a circuit board.
A weekend-long workshop—Friday, February 28 – Sunday, March 1, 2020—at NYU ITP offered students the opportunity to learn nonvisual soldering techniques from Dr. Joshua Miele: founder of the Blind Arduino Project, former Associate Director of the Smith-Kettlewell Rehabilitation Engineering Research Center on Low Vision and Blindness, and former Creative Director of LightHouse Labs. In addition to gaining hands-on experience with a soldering iron, students were guided in building their own accessible continuity tester—one of the most fundamental and flexible tools for electronics work without vision.
 Six attendees sit at a long conference table at a blind soldering workshop, set up with individual soldering stations that include soldering mats, fans, helping hands, tools, a tactile schematic, and soldering irons. In the foreground, Josh Miele hands a circuit board to an attendee. Tom Igoe watches an attendee who is concentrating intently on soldering at their soldering station. Delicate plumes of solder smoke can be seen wafting up from the tip of the iron.

The Project: A Continuity Tester

Our project was building an audio continuity tester – one of the most useful and versatile pieces of accessible equipment for making electronics. In the process, attendees learned about nonvisual soldering tools and techniques, and gained hands-on soldering experience in the company of blind teachers and classmates. Close up of the continuity tester built in the workshop laying on top of a tactile schematic, which shows all connected components on a circuit board including a 9V battery, alligator clips, an 8 ohm speaker, and transistor.

Materials

Tools

  1. Insulated Silicone Soldering Mat
  2. Wire Stripper/Cutter
  3. Forceps Varying sizes, bent and straight locking
  4. Flush Cutter
  5. Test Leads with Alligator Clips
  6. Small wrenches and screwdrivers
  7. Vice
  8. Soldering Station
  9. Copper wire for point-to-point soldering
  10. 60/40 rosin-core solder

An attendee places their hands atop a bare soldering mat, with small trays spanning across the very top of the mat for small components. At their 12 o'clock is a fan and to their 2 o'clock is a soldering iron and vice.

Components

  1. Capacitors
  2. 22k-ohm Resistors
  3. Audio Transformer
  4. Transistor
  5. 9v Battery Clips
  6. Vector Board
  7. Project Enclosure
  8. ⅛” Mono Plug
  9. ⅛” Mono Jack
  10. 3” 8-ohm speaker 
  11. 9v batteries
  12. 1” machine screws and nuts

A cornucopia of tools and components used during the workshop lay across a desk, some steal sealed in their packaging, including, forceps, gaffer tape, enclosures, circuit boards, and alligator clips.

Cans of seltzer water on a window ledge, their flavors separated by parallel strips of gaffer tape. Towards the front of the ledge are adhesive Braille labels indicating the seltzer flavor.
We used Gaffer tape and Braille labels to tactilely delineate between materials.
Close up of hands rotating a Braille labeler to create a beverage label.
A Braille labeler

Circuit Diagram

  1. Tactile Schematic
  2. Textual Description (for screen readers)
    • The center tap of the transformer’s primary connects to the emitter of the transistor, and the collector of the transistor connects to ground. One end of the transformer’s primary connects to a 0.022uF capacitor, which connects in turn to the base of the transistor. A 22 KW resistor also connects to the base of the transistor. The other end of the resistor connects to the positive test lead. The positive end of the battery connects to the other end of the transformer’s primary. The negative side of the battery connects to ground. The negative test lead connects to ground. One more 0.022 uF capacitor connects across the primary of the transformer. The 8W speaker connects across the secondary of the transformer.

Close up of hands exploring a tactile schematic of a continuity tester. A tactile schematic of a continuity tester with alligator clips, a wire cutter, forceps, and the finished project laying around its perimeter.

Background Reading

We sent reading material, specifically designed for the workshop, in advance. We clarified that there was no expectation to memorize or even to understand everything in the articles. Their purpose was to set the stage for the tools and techniques that would be used and taught. We expected attendees to have more questions about blind soldering than they did before reading them, but we anticipated it. We suggested reading through them a few times to pick up bits that were missed on earlier passes.

  1. An updated article from the Smith-Kettlewell Technical File (Soldering Part II: Metallurgy, landmarking, and handling of soldering irons)
  2. A blog post about the continuity tester and its various uses for blind makers. Although it is ostensibly about building a quick and dirty continuity tester with an Arduino, the article has good content, as well as links to other resources regarding variations on the basic theme of accessible continuity testers.

Volunteer Training

  1. We set norms and expectations for working with BLV learners by offering an introduction to blind culture techniques for BLV travel and communications to the volunteers.
  2. We put volunteers on alert for potential biases, explaining the importance of hearing and respecting the number of ways people identify in terms of their disability.
  3. If needed, volunteers would re-iterate instructions, while offering assistance and collaboration to attendees.

Nonvisual Soldering Curriculum

Electronics Basics

  • Circuits, current flow, voltage
  • Continuity tester components

Our Project: The Continuity Tester

[Video Description: Josh Miele guides an attendee through a tactile schematic of a continuity tester]

  • Explanation of the circuit with textual description and tactile schematic and fabrication 
  • Uses of the Continuity Tester in accessible making

Wayfinding

  • Building a mental map of the elements on the circuit board
  • Practice with a cold soldering iron

[Video Description: Josh Miele doubles up a line of solder and places it on the circuit board while demonstrating how to practice using a cold soldering iron]

  • Using soldering tip like white cane for feedback

Close up of an attendee soldering their circuit board, secured in a vice. Their left middle finger touches the base of the forceps, which landmark where to line up the soldering iron tip.

[Video Description: An attendee uses a soldering iron like a white cane to line it up with the end of the landmarking forceps]

  • Landmarking techniques (Permanent orientation cues)
    • Using existing features for landmarking like circuit board, components and wires on the board
    • Using optional landmarks
      • Edge of the vice

[Video Description: An attendee secures his circuit board in his vice, allowing about 1/3 to jut out to the side to leave room to lock a pair of forceps onto it]

      • Edge of locking forceps

[Video Description: An attendee uses a pair of locking forceps to indicate where to place the tip of the soldering iron]

Stability

  • Vice for holding the circuit board in place

Josh Miele's hands guide an attendee with securing their circuit board in their vice. [Video Description: An attendee adjusts their vice to secure their circuit board in place]

  • Personalizing workspace for easy access to materials
  • Resting elbow on table to brace the arms

  [Video Description: Josh Miele holds the solder leash at the end of the forceps and demonstrates how to rest an elbow on the table for stability]

Sensing Techniques

When achieving alloy temperature:

  • Smell the smoke from the melting solder

[Video Description: An attendee guides their soldering iron to the juncture of the end of the landmarking forceps and the leash of solder they’re holding with their left hand]

[Video Description: An attendee holds their soldering iron onto a leash of solder as plumes of solder begin to waft upwards towards their face]

  • Feel the wires attached to the circuit heating up
  • Feel of stickiness of the iron tip that comes from the rosin
  • Use a solder leash and feel it break
    • Wrap solder around a component.

  [Video Description: An attendee’s circuit board, held by a vice, displays solder wrapped around the individual components]

    • Extend a leash, or a line of solder from the solder that’s wrapped around a component. 

  [Video Description: An attendee holds a leash of solder in their left hand and guides their soldering iron tip to the juncture of where it meets the forceps]

    • Hold it in one hand and keep tension on it. Use the other hand to place the soldering iron tip at the base of the leash. When it breaks, the solder has melted.

A grid of photos shows the process of landmarking using forceps. Clockwise: the instructor helps an attendee use locking forceps to landmark where to put the tip of the soldering iron, the attendee lines the end of the solder up with the end of the forceps, the attendee uses the soldering iron tip to feel for where the end of the solder lines up with the forceps.

Schedule

Friday:

1:00 PM: Volunteer orientation 2:00 PM: Students arrive; Workshop begins

  • Introductions
  • Building orientation and safety
  • Lab orientation and course structure
  • Consider the Continuity Tester

2:54 PM: Hands-on soldering

  • Intro to the tools of Soldering: Irons, solder guides, strippers, cutters, vises, forcipes,
  • Care and feeding of the soldering iron
  • Arranging your tools
  • Basics of solder, alloying, flux, and oxides

3:45 PM: Break 4:00 PM: Hands-On Soldering

  • Tinning wire
  • Soldering lugs
  • Point-to-point soldering

5:00 PM: Done for the day!

Saturday:

9:30 AM: Begin Building the Continuity Tester

  • Tin wires and solder to lugs, jacks, plugs, and speaker

12 PM: Lunch 1:00 PM: Soldering on the board

  • Emitter to center tap
  • Capacitor from transformer to base
  • One side of capacitor across primary
  • Resistor to base

2:30 PM: Break 3:00 PM: Connect wire components to board

  • Speaker to transformer secondary
  • Battery connector and plug negative to primary and collector (ground)
  • Positive plug to resistor

5:00 PM: Happy Hour

Sunday:

9:30 AM: Morning session – troubleshooting and putting it in the box

  • Troubleshooting
  • Putting it in the box

11:30 AM: Lab Cleanup 12:00 PM: Closing Discussion 12:30 PM: Farewell!

Documentation

  1. Photos

What We Learned

  1. Provide tactile and textual procedural instruction for screen reader access
    1. Helps attendees who need additional time or want to work ahead
    2. Allows attendees to practice at home or share skills
    3. Informs future instructors who develop their own curriculum
  2. Standardize workshop materials
    1. Train volunteers on building the continuity tester in advance
    2. Provide consistent types of soldering irons
    3. Give participants identical soldering irons
      1. Specifically a temperature-controlled, chisel tip soldering irons 
      2. Pair with an analog station featuring a tactile temperature knob and power switch
  3. Try cold soldering or resistance soldering
  4. Create accessible online video documentation of nonvisual soldering lessons as a scalable way to teach and practice skills

Volunteers gather around Josh Miele and listen intently as he demonstrates a step in building a continuity tester. Two volunteers and Josh Miele lean over the shoulders of attendees—seated at their soldering stations at a long conference table—smiling and assisting. Regine, one of the volunteers, faces one of the attendees smiling widely, her head tilted to the side, propped up on her hand. At the end of a conference table, an attendee focuses and holds their soldering iron, while a volunteer observes.

Resources

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