Starting from very little knowledge, I’ve found DIY electronics to be a nice improvement to my cruising quality of life. Arduino/electrical/programming turns out to be less expensive, more forgiving of errors, easier to start/stop in between other things, and less demanding of physical space in comparison to my usual mechanical projects. And the results are useful- I have several Arduinos on board replacing what used to be daily manual tasks.
So that’s one simple inspiration for X Engineering- the desire to share some of this creative fun and “cruising boat automation” with beginners in the hobby.
Another major inspiration was/is Internet Forums. A good amount of my mechanical knowledge came from the car forums I read as a teenager, and today I’m a member of CruisersForum (sailing), HardwareAcademy (electronics development), SprinterSource (campervans), and PracticalMachinist (machining). I believe forums are today’s best databases of semi-technical information- better than books, better than the newer forms of social media. A well-planned posting has been more useful to me than professional design reviews, and they’re completely free.
So, another vision/inspiration for X Engineering is to combine some very powerful lego pieces available to us in 2024…
Microcontrollers
$1-2 Integrated Circuit chips
Low cost custom PCB factories
Cheap sensors and displays
… with Open Source software. Software is like legos as well, with code libraries available to support every conceivable task. Making a simple program is easy: google, copy, paste, repeat until it works.
…with Internet Forums. The open sharing of information and wide distribution allow the best solutions to float to the top, and I think a product can reach a high quality level with disproportionately low development costs.
…with the Global Economy/Freelance work. Some things are still outsourced, when justified, and this can be done cheaply and conveniently with resources like Upwork.
with intuitive web/eCommerce tools, to build this site and accept payments.
with 3rd party logistics, to scale without employees (TBD)
and with high transparency of everything, an experiment I believe will build trust with contributors and customers.
Mark Nickerson