It helped a lot to have grant funding finally (I picked up the wad of cash Wednesday morning!) because I could print an English manual (its final version) and a Luganda manual (the as of yet unedited version; Julie has been line editing the typed version this weekend) to have for reference. The table/components section is the most often referenced, and it doesn't seem like either version has been read cover-to-cover yet, meaning the more wordy sections haven't really been looked at. It's hard to tell what people think yet though since we do only have two copies.
Our goal with these lessons was to have the group build the same measuring circuit that their box has to place in Malembo (right now, Alex has a multimeter for every time he wants to determine current or voltage). Our lessons started by walking through the circuit diagram for the measuring circuit, so that it was clear how the circuit functioned and what path was followed by current when different switches were engaged. This circuit is just a larger version of one of the practice circuits we built with them (a phone battery measuring circuit), but it's been so long since we did that and it is a large circuit that everybody had a lot of trougle walking through the diagram. (Also: the group saw little reason to build the circuit based on the circuit diagram when all we would have to do is open up their box and copy the circuit layout, i.e.: which pin goes in which hole. This is a cop-out because to build off a circuit diagram, you understand current flow and connections, to build off an already constructed bread-board you're basically copy-pasting.)
After people felt ok with the diagram, we started building. A short demo in soldering onto a circuit board and Bbale was a pro. Most people did practice soldering once, but Bbale really soldered the whole circuit board that we built.
When it came to construction, I had whichever members currently present assemble 3 components at a time using the circuit diagram and think through the function of that piece of the circuit. Then I would check it and if it was right, Bbale would solder and we'd keep moving.
When we finally got it constructed, the circuit didn't work hooked up to the system in Lwemodde. And while everyone had developed some level of comfort with building the circuit and soldering, the only way to try and fix it that people could think of was to go back over the diagram and the circuit and try and figure out if something had been skipped. I tried to teach people how to use the multimeter to determine if a component isn't functioning correctly in the circuit by measuring voltages, testing connections, and measuring resistances, but people weren't super interested in that and it was hard to get everyone to crowd around the box, which is deliberately hooked up in an out-of-the-way place and hard to get more than one person to. Ultimately, it seemed as though the voltage regulator wasn't functioning right (instead of 12 V as output, this one was delivering maybe 7) and then one of the opamps was blown (LEDs 1, 2, and 5 lit up, while 3 and 4 were dark after we replaced the voltage regulator. Replacing the op-amp fixed that). I think one thing that I'm planning on re-emphasizing at some point is trouble-shooting and kind of the basic things to check in a similar situation.
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