Sometimes, simpler is better
My daughter’s teacher asked his fifth-grade students to draw an angle from the endpoint of a 6-cm line using a protractor. She measured the angle using the protractor in the figure. With it’s pivoting arm, this protractor looked like a great tool for the job. Not.Checking the angle my daughter drew, I found the protractor hard to use. I tried to align the 6-cm line to the protractor’s inside straight edge, but that put the 6-cm line below the arm’s pivot point, which would produce the wrong measurement. Knowing that the line’s end point should be at the pivot point, I placed it there but realized that I had lost alignment with the protractor.
Then I saw the problem: The arm’s pivot point lines up with the 0/180 and 180/0 markers. The photo shows if you have a line long enough to connect the 0/180 marker to the 180/0 marker, the line indeed passes through the pivot point. At best, your line must connect the pivot point to one of the markers. But, the 6-cm line was too short for that. The line in the photo is long enough to use with the protractor. (Click on the photo to enlarge.)
Fortunately, my daughter had another, albeit simpler, protractor. It’s 0/180 and 180/0 marks align with its outside straight edge. She needed to simply align the end point of the 6-cm line with the protractor’s center marker and align the line to the outside straight edge. Then, the assigned angle was easy to find.
The more sophisticated protractor, with its pivoting arm, was the wrong tool for making an angle to a short line. A more basic instrument was better suited for this task. You may find the same thing happens with electronic measurements. You don’t need a 6-digit meter with lots of features when a basic 4-digit meter will do. In fact, you may just need an analog meter with a dial. A dial meter may be easier to read as long as you don’t need the resolution of a digital meter.
Charlotte commented:
In rdnaieg the above it just strikes me that one cannot hate another unless it is a reflection of some ideal or belief they hold about themselves. In other words one cannot hate another unless they hate themselves. Land of the Free and Brave Fail
Yevgeni Tunik commented:
Simpler instrument isn't always better.
Example 1: A digital scope is much more convenient, than an analog scope.
Example 2: Debugging of logic issues at SPI, I2C, and similar serial bus - is much more convenient with a logic analyzer, than with a scope.
Leonard Greer commented:
Not to disagree with your premise of simplicity in general but to me its clear that the tool you show is defective and it is the defect that caused the problem, not its complexity. the 0/180 ends should have aligned with the top of the lower part, without the shown gap.
Martin Rowe commented:
Readers: Please send me an e-mail. Perhaps we can work together to write about one of your projects. m.rowe@ieee.org.
J. Williams commented:
Sometimes??? My dad used to design large industrial projects like paper mills, cotton bleacheries, etc. One of his favorite sayings was, "Any idiot can make it complicated."
LSMB commented:
Sometimes I'll watch someone spend alot of time setting up a sophisticated logic a analyzer for a simple serial bus, I2C, etc ... just use an O-scope. Between an O-scope and handheld multimeter, you can find out what you need in a few minutes.
Dan Quixoté commented:
Much agreed, Martin. I used to think fancier tools make life easier. And on some occasions, they do. But 15 years in the business and almost twice that long as a hobbyist have taught me that the best tools are the simplest ones. Yes, you can debug PWM's and data buses using an AC/DC rms voltmeter (worked great for, among other things, HVAC system controls). And you can use an AM/FM radio to debug your software - just tune to harmonics of your bus frequency(ies), and probe the bus. Just let it run while you do other things. Your brain will quickly learn what sounds correspond to which routines are running (or stopped) (or stuck in).
Who else has some favorite simple tools?
