Hi Steve,
Perhaps I can shed some light on this from personal experience!
8 years ago when I would see pictures of TK's in operation, Big streamers
shooting out of a large torrid on top of a 4' secondary sitting on top of a
large complicated base. There was no way I had the $$ or desire, or
knowledge to build anything like this! So, I never even researched it.
Then I saw a Wimshurst machine on a SteamPunk site with simple
instructions and cheap parts to buy for the build, so I built one. Then
built 6 more improving them along the way and making them more powerful as
I went.
Well the sparks were not big enough, so next came the VDG's, and ,MAN, I
could get 14" discharges with them. By then I was doing a lot of looking on
the internet and saw that there were lots of simple little Tesla Coils I
could build for cheap that wouldn't "FRY" me if I made a mistake!
Do you get the drift?
Open the pupman site to include other HV toys as bait to get some
interest going in Tesla Coils.
Most young people today have never heard of Nicola Tesla or his inventions,
I think they just relate to Elon Musk as being the [Tesla} man!
Last week on Jeopardy Teen champions there was a question pertaining to
Tesla, none of them rang in!
Doug
On Tue, Nov 20, 2018 at 10:00 AM Steve White <steve.white1@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> When I first joined the TCML back around 2002,I used to receive about 20
> messages per day from the TCML. Now, I am lucky if I see a single message
> every few days. On occasion, I will see periodic bursts of postings in
> response to specific questions from members. Have all the members moved on
> to other interests or died? We need to determine a way to get new people
> interested in this hobby. I fear that most of the potential younger members
> are absorbed in computer-related things. There is nothing wrong with that.
> I spent most of my engineering career developing real-time embedded DSP
> software. We just need to discover a way to expand their interests into the
> world of physical hardware, especially high voltage. I built my first tesla
> coil, a small VTTC, when I was 16 and this is what got me interested in
> electrical engineering as a career. I periodically display my coils to kids
> in my neighborhood. I also plan to take my smaller coils around to schools
> for demonstrations.
>
> Thoughts?
>
> Steve White
> Cedar Rapids, Iowa
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> https://www.pupman.com/mailman/listinfo/tesla
>
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