Maker Outreach: Learn to Solder

We received a request to participate in Frontier Middle School's STEM Night. Their coordinator heard about us from Heritage High School's Girls in STEM Day and was particularly impressed that we taught kids how to solder and asked us to partner with their wind turbine table.

We have 6 soldering stations. Our set-up:

Amazon Basics Silicone Baking Mat

Weller Soldering Irons (make sure they have a fine tip!)

Elenco Soldering Iron Holder

Lead-Free Solder

HAKO Smoke Absorber

Frontier's STEM night was a drop-in format so robot badges would have been very difficult in this set-up. I brought some hookup wire and had the students practice stripping the wire and soldering the ends together. 

The school provided us with some LEDs and a hobby motor. After the students practiced on the hookup wire, we let them solder the LED to the motor and then demonstrated how the motor could power the LED. 

It was a quick and satisfying project!  

We've been using the same irons and tips since our first soldering project in 2017. It might be time to replace our iron tips and/or upgrade our irons.