What do we want, and why?
I'd make that a little more concrete or perhaps preface it with a couple of questions:
1: What do you want people to learn (knowledge) / acquire (skill, competence, ability) through this curriculum/repository?
2: What level of prerequisite knowledge (in which fields/areas) will you assume?
At that point you can start asking questions about what you'd need to offer and in which format.
As to a 'curriculum' - in my view the essence of a curriculum is the journey aspect. I.e. it
guides a person through their journey of acquiring knowledge, skill, competence etc. What we have so far and what you've contributed to especially is a (very useful!) repository of documented explorations in various cameras. To me, a repository of things is different from a curriculum. If the intent is to make people learn, I believe you need to think not just about
what you'll offer, but also
how they will walk through the process of acquiring knowledge & competence.
Back to the questions I asked: If I simply things quite dramatically, I think when it comes to camera repair you end up for question (1) that you primarily want to teach people something that's relevant specifically to camera repairs. That breaks down into, again roughly speaking, a number of things:
A: Theoretical knowledge within the relevant domains; mechanics, electronics, control systems, perhaps a little firmware
B: Practical skill in assembly, disassembly, documenting, tracking down & analyzing defects
C: Knowledge of common concepts used in camera systems to fulfill the basic functions of a camera
A and B are not camera-specific. They occur in many places in the broader field we vaguely refer to by the umbrella term 'engineering'. Consequently, there are plenty of places, methods and ways to acquire both knowledge and competence. People can learn in formal education, they can self-study using books or online resources like YouTube videos, and they can engage in experiential learning where they basically just try things out and try to make sense of what happens.
The added value of your curriculum/repository w.r.t. A + B could be mostly, in my view, in suggesting resources and methods. You've been doing this to an extent, but for the journey aspect (see above), I feel more/different structure would be beneficial. It's now kind of left to chance whether someone will hit upon what they need. This also brings into view the inherent limitations of a forum/message board as the platform to host a proper curriculum. It's just not very suitable to the task.
My observation is also that for A and B, there's not really much need to organize much apart from perhaps an index/key to find useful resources. This implies that the answer to question (2) is that you'd best serve people with a certain level of engineering knowledge and competence, and if they lack this, they'd do well to catch up on their deficiencies with the means already (externally) available.
This leaves C, for which three approaches come to mind:
C1: Document tear-downs, explorations and (attempted) repairs by means of examples. You've been doing this, with gusto. It's very useful, but also here, the question of structure/guidance comes into view if you think about a curriculum. This seems to work mostly (and quite well indeed) for the scenario where someone is working on a particular type of camera and a tear-down report of that particular model happens to be available and is found through e.g. online search.
C2: Formal repair manuals, either brand-supplied or 3rd party. You regularly link to these; again, they're insanely useful. They serve a similar purpose as C1 and are mostly relevant if there's a perfect fit between the job at hand and the documentation available. The availability of these is also kind of exogenous; we're not really in a position to re-create these repair/service manuals. At least not presently.
C3: More general/conceptual descriptions in a structured manner, that give insight into how different functions and subsystems work and what particular solutions are encountered in the field. I am not aware of anything (let alone, anything
good) in this area, but it would IMO bridge the gap between having a decent engineering background and being a proficient camera repairman. It's the kind of knowledge and documentation that will guide someone with the needed skills in an efficient manner through a diagnosis and repair process.
C1 and C2 are fairly decently covered, and increasingly so through your efforts, but at the same time they're also problematic because - well, it just never ends. There's always another camera model that's just slightly different from all the other ones, so it needs to be documented separately. This challenge is probably just never done. The stop-gap measure would be C3, which could potentially make a skilled repair person less dependent on specific documentation. Moreover, if such documentation is present, something like C3 will make it easier to locate whatever documentation is available, since it's more clear what is sought after, and it also makes it more feasible to e.g. extrapolate/abduct documentation from one model onto another. Hence my emphasis on this category, as I think this is where a real difference could potentially be made.
So, in summary, if we talk about a curriculum as such, I'd expect that it would do the following:
* Make explicit what kind of background knowledge is required for the curriculum to work for any given person.
* Provide insight into what's available to fill deficiencies in this background knowledge (and skill).
* Give guidance in the learning process; i.e. offer some kind of navigational aids so someone can 'walk through' the process in such a way that they have a decent chance of making good sense of whatever content is provided to them.
* Provide the content that is relevant to the essence of the curriculum; i.e. that concretely helps meeting the learning objectives.
A repository of documented repairs etc. can definitely be part of that last bullet and lacking the other elements of a real curriculum, I'd find it very useful if continued expansion of that part would occur. This, combined with the limitations of a forum as a didactic environment, also makes me wonder whether the question of the curriculum is really the one to focus on, or whether it's perhaps already plenty good enough (and more than that!) to "just" continue what you've already been doing.
). Wish you all the best.
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