ARTICLE HERE
 
 
Young people in Britain have become a lost generation who can no longer mend gadgets and appliances because they have grown up in a disposable world, the professor giving this year’s Royal Institution Christmas lectures has warned.
 

This year’s Royal Institution Christmas Lectures are entitled ‘Sparks will fly: How to hack your home’ she is hoping it will inspire people to think what else they can do with common household objects.

 
Ideas include using a magnifying glass and shoe box to turn a mobile phone into a rudimentary projector; how to use tin foil to make too small batteries fit correctly and how to turn a bottle of water into a lamp.
 
I would like to learn two of those above mentioned tips

My daughter's 25 year old boyfriend is an engineer. He can fix, or build, pretty much anything, given the materials and tools (most of which he has to hand)

My daughter who's 8 loves learning about electricity.....she's been asking for a battery & light bulb experimental kit which I'll definitely get her.
Eventhough I'm limited in my knowledge/experience in fixing things (especially in the house), I'm all about promoting "fix it yourself" (whatever it maybe) and making sure the little ones are all involved in learning how to be self reliant. I think it's a great thing to be able to manually fix things and not depend so much on outside services.   

Interestingly there's another lost generation consisting of older folks who have to hire young folks to teach them how to use their newfangled black boxes.

I'd take offense to that but I guess technically I am no longer "young". I also use to be heavy into the salvage/freecycle thing. You find yourself surrounded with a lot of useless junk living that life though and I don't have the room, time, patience or back for those shenanigans anymore.

considering most gadgets are being made less and less user serviceable, it's a bit of a non sequitur to point at a generation. Take most appliances in to get serviced by professionals and they tend to lean towards replacing. The iPhone is a prime example. Everyone i know that has tried toreplace a battery got pushed to a new phone. I figured out why when i saw someone try to replace battery. There is adhesive on battery that may or may not allow you to remove without damaging fragile parts. Even apple techs sometimes fail at removing it cleanly.

I've been trying to mend myself for exactly 12 years now.
 
Tomorrow starts year 13.

bapu</p> <p>I've been trying to mend myself for exactly 12 years now.</p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p>Tomorrow starts year 13.</p> <p><br />

<br /><br /></p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p>Just do what everyone &nbsp;else does and upgrade to new and improved bapu

Wow..software went pfffft