Learning Platform Guide

Introduction

First and foremost, the Thimble Learning Platform is the home of all of our guides related to the monthly Thimble kits. Here, you'll find walkthroughs on building the kits, as well as supplemental write-ups on useful skills and knowledge, like soldering techniques, programming, and electrical theory. We hope to grow the Learning Platform as a community, eventually having user-submitted guides and contests where you can showcase what you've learned.

Resources

The Modules search should be the first place you should check out. All the current guides live here, and they should be titled unambiguously enough. If you're looking for this guide for the current month's kit, it will always be featured on the home page.

The Forum is the place to go if you need (or want to give) assistance past what the Modules have to offer or if you need something clairified. Of course, the Forum isn't limited to just kit help- It's our main public discussion area for all things Thimble.

Finally, you can email us at support@thimble.io if the Forum and Modules don't suffice. However, you'll definitely get a quicker response if you post in the Forums, and you'll be helping out others that are having the same issue.

Navigation

Currently, the site consists of these parts:
  • Home- the Learning App landing page. It will typical present a couple paragraphs about the current Thimble kit, as well as a link to the guide for that kit
  • User Profile- this will allow you to update your user information and eventually view your activity, your badges, and manage your projects, uploads, notes, and followers.
  • Learning App Modules- this is where you will find our guides. During the beta testing phase, they may or may not be complete, and some may reference future kits that haven't been released (and may not be released).
  • Forum- discussion of all things Thimble, making, programming, etc. There are thousands of subscribers and hopefully as many "outside" visitors, so the forum is the main meeting place for discussions, trading tips, and showing off cool builds/hacks.
  • Blog- Thimble's official blog
  • Help- this guide

Our Current Development Goals

  • Evaluate the format of our Project Modules
    We're trying to find a middle ground between a simple step-by-step guide and a textbook-style in-depth discussion. Our subscribers come from all ages, professions, and backgrounds, so our guides should be written appropriately for our audience- ie, they should be moderately easy to follow along with, even with no prior experience in programming and electronics, but without holding the reader's hand to the point that those with some experience are bored out of their minds. They're also not meant to be an exhaustive discussion on electrical fundamentals or computer science, but we do hope to fill those gaps with our "learn" modules, the forum, and external resources.
  • Get feedback on site layout and design
    We've based our design on an "app" model that should provide easy navigation and quick transitions between pages. After the site's been loaded, a lot of the content should work even offline (though this part is somewhat incomplete). The site should be responsive and snappy, and navigation should never be confusing.
  • Collect suggestions on content and features
    We're building this site for you, our subscribers. While we've come up with a lot of features that we think would be extremely useful for you, in the end, the most important thing is that we provide an application that works great for you. Any and all feedback is greately appreciated.

What Works and What Doesn't

Currently Working

  • View available modules
  • Navigate through each module
  • Account creation, logging in, resetting password
  • Updating email address, password, avatar
  • Logging in to the forums
  • Reading, posting in, and viewing the forums
  • Saving your login status between visits
  • Uploading project pictures at end of module
  • Module print view
  • Facebook sharing

Doesn't work, or work in progress

  • Searching and filtering modules
  • Following other users' progress
  • Viewing other users' profiles
  • Activity display
  • Earning badges
  • Taking notes on modules
  • "Starring" a module
We appreciate your patience and feedback while we work on making the "doesn't work" list smaller. If you find something that's not listed in the "doesn't work" list but you think should be working, let us know.

Bug Reporting, Suggestions

You can report bugs or make suggetions by opening a new thread in the Forum (or expanding on an already existing thread). We do read all of these, even if we don't respond right away. You can also email us with any bugs as well.We'd especially prefer email if you find a security or privacy vunerability, or a bug that completely inhibits the usability of the site.

Conclusion

We hope this guide was useful in providing direction and that you enjoy your building experience. Our developers are constantly at work building out the Learning Platform so that it can help meet our goal of sparking a passion for Making in all of our subscribers and visitors, and so as bugs and suggestions come along, we'll do our best to implement corrections.