When I started there was lots of smoke 😀 it’s true that you can easily accumulate random stuff, but I still think it’s better to have spares of the things I use than risking running out and waiting for a delivery. Maybe I’m just disorganised.

When you buy components, buy a bag of them. Good for when you let the smoke out of one, and you can have several projects on the go at a time.

Not sure I understand the problem fully, but you want a circuit to operate when you push the horn button, without affecting the horn operation.

Chances are the relay coil is drawing to much power.

Have you thought about adding a transistor to your circuit? It would draw very little current from the horn circuit but should allow you to drive something else. - such as your relay. It would of course require you to do some electronics.

Remember that you are also interviewing them. They won’t expect you to know all the answers, but will want someone that they can work with. If you can, answer questions with the STAR method (situation, task, approach, result), but don’t waffle. You can use one piece of experience in a variety of ways: teamwork, research, urgent deadline etc.

It’s ok to say that you are nervous, they should try to put you at ease.

You may be asked ‘trick questions’, these are not usually to to you up but to see how you work an unknown problem. There is no right answer. Not knowing stuff is ok. Not being able to think up a plan is less so.

Remember whatever the outcome, this is really useful experience. See if you can get a site tour, ask about the tech used… You can then add this to your knowledge for later. In my experience, industry is frequently several years ahead of academia so you get a good chance to understand the real world.

I’d go with a good quality traditional key lock fitted properly in a good door and frame. Security isn’t a single point task, it depends on many things so think like a bad person and do what you can to make your property a harder target than your neighbours.

A good lock on a bad door doesn’t work, neither does a bad lock on a good door. Everything needs to work together. If you’re likely to lose your keys or many people need access a smart lock may be an idea, but good probably isn’t cheap. If it’s just you and you can keep your keys safe, then I think tried, tested and simple kit is good.

Ultimately though, as ever, it’s your risk assessment based on your needs.

If you watch lock picking lawyer, you may as well just leave it open. Most smart locks seem to prioritise convenience over security. -possibly check that your insurance is happy with a smart lock.

There’s a good chance that it’s the capacitors in the PSU that have failed. It’s always the caps! Should be a very doable repair.

Ermmm… If you use several pins to get the current rating, what happens if one of the pins fails or gets corroded? Won’t you risk generating heat? Think I’d prefer nice big connectors for the power and to keep the data lines safely segregated. Depends on your needs and design I suppose.

It’s like everything, practice slowly, get good form wired in, then when you write fast for exams your writing will be worse than normal, but still legible.

Practice writing slowly and with good form. Write regularly, give yourself practice pieces. At uni you will be writing FAST, so it’ll get worse if you don’t keep disciplined.

Alternatively, learn to touch type, and type any work you need to hand in. - if your handwriting is so bad, you may want to make your notes legible to yourself for revision.

Brilliant, many thanks. With all the old phones in my cupboards I’d hoped this was the answer, but it’s good to get a second opinion.

This is very interesting. Have you considered studying social engineering? - I’ve found SE techniques quite understandable to help form a process to deal with people in a ‘useful’ way. Many years ago I was sent on a positive influencing course via work and discovered that most NTs can be quite easily manipulated with a few simple tricks. In the end I stopped using them as it felt unfair.

Butt your enclosure right up against the lock body, then you reduce shearing forces trying to pull it off the door. Extend the pull bar through your enclosure so you still have a manual override.

While I’m not adverse to home automation, is this something you need in your life, or just want? I like my perimeter security too be simple and tight, extra complications make the security audit much harder.

Will your insurance stand up to home made remote control unlocking?

To answer your question, place the servo in a suitably large enclosure and practically any adhesive should work, e.g. 3mM command strips or even velcro or double sided sticky. When confident that this is what you want, use a screw.

I’ve avoided the conversation entirely. Ever since the pandemic I’ve done my own hair with clippers. Made a good enough job of it, even if I’ve sometimes needed to do a small adjustment the next day.

For a simple style it’s not that difficult if you take your time.

It’s a long time since I had one that age but we clearly noticed when the kids had an upgrade and behaviour changed. I’d put it down to him enjoying his new capabilities and being to excited to sleep. Don’t think it’s a problem, just roll with it, it’s not as if it’s a toy you can take away!

Have fun, it doesn’t get much easier, but it does get different.

Thought I did so well on my phone. It kept auto correcting code to coffee. Maybe it was telling me something.

Yes, plan for it!

All the other comments are great advice. As an ex chemist who does quite a bit of code I’ll add:

Do you want code that works, or code that works?! It’s reasonably easy to knock out ugly code that only works once, and that can be just what you need. It takes a little more effort however to make it robust. Think about how it can fail and trap the failures. If you’re sharing code with others, this is even more important a people do ‘interesting’ things.

There’s a lot of temporary code that’s had a very long life in production, this has technical debt… Is it documented? Is it stable? Is it secure? Ideally it should be

Code examples on the first page of Google tend to work ok, but are not generally secure, e.g doing SQL queries instead of using prepared statements. Doesn’t take much extra effort to do it properly and gives you peace of mind. We create sboms for our code now so we can easily check if a component has gained a vulnerability. Doesn’t mean our code is good, but it helps. You don’t really want to be the person who’s code helped let an attacker in.

Any code you write, especially stuff you share will give you a support and maintenance task long term. Pirate for it!

Code sometimes just stops working. - at least I’m my experience. Sacrifice something to the gods and all will be fine.

Finally, you probably know more than you think. You’ve plenty of experience. Most of the time I can do what I need without e.g. classes, but sometimes I’ll intentionally use a technique in a project just to learn it. I can’t learn stuff if I don’t have a use for it.

I’m still learning, so if I’ve got any part of the above wrong, please help me out.

Yes prime minister is the most accurate documentary about British politics of all time.

Do you on now anyone who uses disposable vapes? There may be a useful battery in one of those if you can’t find an alternative.