“What failure prepared you for later success?” Tim Ferriss often asks this question to the high-performing guests on his podcast, giving them the opportunity to reflect on how setbacks have shaped their journey. Whether the guest is a leader in business, medicine or science, their answers often share a common theme: failure is not only inevitable, but essential. These moments of strugg ...[Read More]
Do-It-Yourself (DIY) in Geoscience Miniseries – Part 3: Getting it all together – Cables, Breadboards and Circuit Boards
You got all your components for your project, so now it’s all about getting it all together. Then it’s great to be able to quickly exchange components and change wiring. That’s where a so-called “breadboard” comes in handy. It’s an easy to use device where you can connect microelectronic components without the need to solder anything. Breadboards are like pinboards for cables and microelect ...[Read More]
Do-It-Yourself (DIY) in Geoscience Miniseries – Part 2: Sensors & Electronics
As a child, I was a huge fan of LEGO. I would spend hours building and creating structures, vehicles and landscapes. For every birthday & Christmas, I wished for the newest sets of these colorful plastic bricks. While building the sets manually was fun, creating something new from my own fantasy was even better. It seemed like once I had a substantial amount of different bricks, combination po ...[Read More]
Do-It-Yourself (DIY) in Geoscience Miniseries – Part 1: Microcontrollers
We geoscientists need all different kinds of data: soil moisture, water-levels, snow height, radiation, precipitation height and the list goes on. However, the devices we need to generate that data are often too expensive, not available or even don’t exist. Therefore, it’s sometimes necessary to build them yourself (like many geoscientists do – those who annually present their senors p ...[Read More]