Serious answer - find something that you are so interested in that the problem is you can't stop. Become obsessed.
I went down a similar rabbit hole soon after covid started to build a small, eh, 'hand sanitizer factory' (that's my story and I'm sticking to it). By the time it was done I had a fully automated distillation setup complete with load cells, six different temperature readouts, solid state current control, flow/temp control for liebig condenser recycle, hierarchy of pid loops largely managing output flow and an attempt at live specific gravity testing. That with a nifty little dashboard to show live progress and compare metrics from various runs. Spent a couple grand on it in total and learned a LOT in the process.
I wanted to learn more about photography, I started asking an LLM and it helped me immensively. Definitely not the same realm but if you wanna pick up new skills, LLMs have tons of beginner friendly ways to explain things!
Yes, I’ve spent a couple hours lately asking Gemini about various home improvement topics in fundamental detail. I’ve learned a lot about:
- How to correctly hang a pre-framed door (shim it, tack it in place with 16 gauge nails, and use one wood screw in the top 2 hinges to prevent the door from sagging)
- How to properly adhere MDF trim to the ceiling to hide a closet door track (screw a furring strip or a header board to the studs above the drywall, shim it so it’s level in case the ceiling is uneven, and then nail through the face of the trim into the strip)
- What the difference is between the 27 DAP putties and spackles in the paint aisle (turns out Painters Putty 53 is typically used to hide finish nail holes, because you tend to make a lot of them and can just smoosh it in and level it off with a palette knife!)
For optics through photography (not CCD operation or post processing which are vast subjects themselves) I highly recommend View Camera Technique 7th Edition and Scientific America Image, Object and Illusion as general audience applicable introductions.
Now with LLMs? Super easy. Just ask for step by step instructions to build a standard drone. You will learn about micro controllers, physics, pcbs, 3d printing etc.
If you have some time available definitely worth it.
A good engineering course would cover most (if not all) of the skills necessary to do this. This is notable because the person is young and wielding a broad slice of the discipline with maturity.
> Where would you start?
Exploration and tinkering! But you have to have passion and deep interest in that topic/problem
Serious answer - find something that you are so interested in that the problem is you can't stop. Become obsessed.
I went down a similar rabbit hole soon after covid started to build a small, eh, 'hand sanitizer factory' (that's my story and I'm sticking to it). By the time it was done I had a fully automated distillation setup complete with load cells, six different temperature readouts, solid state current control, flow/temp control for liebig condenser recycle, hierarchy of pid loops largely managing output flow and an attempt at live specific gravity testing. That with a nifty little dashboard to show live progress and compare metrics from various runs. Spent a couple grand on it in total and learned a LOT in the process.
I wanted to learn more about photography, I started asking an LLM and it helped me immensively. Definitely not the same realm but if you wanna pick up new skills, LLMs have tons of beginner friendly ways to explain things!
Yes, I’ve spent a couple hours lately asking Gemini about various home improvement topics in fundamental detail. I’ve learned a lot about:
- How to correctly hang a pre-framed door (shim it, tack it in place with 16 gauge nails, and use one wood screw in the top 2 hinges to prevent the door from sagging)
- How to properly adhere MDF trim to the ceiling to hide a closet door track (screw a furring strip or a header board to the studs above the drywall, shim it so it’s level in case the ceiling is uneven, and then nail through the face of the trim into the strip)
- What the difference is between the 27 DAP putties and spackles in the paint aisle (turns out Painters Putty 53 is typically used to hide finish nail holes, because you tend to make a lot of them and can just smoosh it in and level it off with a palette knife!)
For optics through photography (not CCD operation or post processing which are vast subjects themselves) I highly recommend View Camera Technique 7th Edition and Scientific America Image, Object and Illusion as general audience applicable introductions.
Now with LLMs? Super easy. Just ask for step by step instructions to build a standard drone. You will learn about micro controllers, physics, pcbs, 3d printing etc.
If you have some time available definitely worth it.
A good engineering course would cover most (if not all) of the skills necessary to do this. This is notable because the person is young and wielding a broad slice of the discipline with maturity.