When looking for answers to questions these days, it’s almost instinctive to use the Internet, often on a portable device. In fact, you are probably reading this post on a battery-operated device, and the only wire you need is for nightly charging (and maybe not even that anymore, thanks to wireless charging).
I also venture to guess that your device is more powerful than all of your childhood computers combined. The Internet in the air! Computing power that used to take up rooms at universities now fits comfortably in your pocket at gigabit-per-second speeds. Though thanks to Parkinson’s Law, where data expands to fill space allotted for it, we will still find ourselves feeling frustrated that it takes “forever” to download a page.
How do engineers manage to make these technology miracles? Discipline, dedication and a thirst to solve problems are common factors. Engineers also love to learn, through personal and empirical experiences as well as in the classroom.
But what defines a classroom today? The Internet has fundamentally changed how we can learn, effectively leveling the playing field. If innovative thinkers can flip the classroom, then why can’t we flip the engineering classroom? Learning doesn’t have to occur only in the traditional formats; we can learn anywhere with the advancements of technology, including at home, on our commute, on a break from work. Some concepts might not be possible to crack without a full hands-on experience, but you need to lay that foundation first and then build on it.
Texas Instruments continues to enable this on demand learning. Recently we launched a brand new revamped training portal where you can peruse videos on the latest in topics, spanning from power design, to op amp integration, and multiple topics in between; videos from our engineers to you. If your preferred medium for education is through reading then we have you covered as well. Our interface team is now blogging here on Analog Wire and TI’s new blog dedicated to the industrial market, aptly named Industrial Strength. This new blog includes posts on a range of industrial electronics trends, tools, tips and tricks with deep system-level knowledge. To aid industrial system designers who may have never got specifically interface-oriented technology education in school, TI’s industrial interface engineers will teach some great lessons on current topics. We started with the foundation for industrial interfaces, the RS-485 and CAN bus interfaces.
To learn more about these interfaces, see the introductory posts below and follow the Industrial Strength blog for more on industrial systems designs and solutions. And watch for posts on these and other interfaces here on Analog Wire as well.