Took my younger brothers to show them Arch Reactor last night.  It was my attempt to get them interested in electronics other than video games.  I really didn’t expect them to be to interested in anything but the MAME cabinet that was there.  I figured it was still worth a shot and at the very least we get some brotherly bonding going on.

We arrived at the space and I found the Minty-Boost USB charging kit that I ordered had arrived.  I was eager to put it together so I roped in the help of my brothers.  I showed them my newly learned soldering skills, and awed them by melting metal to forge tiny electronics.  A bit of an overstatement, but I had to grab their attention somehow.

I showed the older sibling the techniques I had learned and he picked things up pretty quickly.  We started setting up the kit.  You could tell he was starting to have fun.  The word “awesome” was used several times.

The youngest, who’s only ten, got bored with his video games and wanted to see what we were doing.  At first he was intimidated by the concept of melting wire with a hot pointed stick.  Though he quickly got up the courage to give it a try.  The kid was a natural.  He picked things up very quickly and began out-soldering both his brothers.

I was so excited to see them having so much fun doing something educational and being constructive.  I wish I had thought to take pictures of them working, but I was more concerned they didn’t poke anyones eye out with the iron.

Piece by piece the kit came together.  It went together easily and the directions weren’t too difficult.  The  only hiccup was that the instructions covered multiple versions of the device, dependent on your power needs.  Eventually it was time to test it out. I grabbed the cable to charge my phone and viola!  Everything worked like it was suppose to.  Not only will this be a handy gadget, but a pleasant memory I get to carry around.