Schematics for newbies

[JiM]

I've found a cool video to teach the very basics of what a schematic is, why it's useful (compared to physical layouts), and some components symbols:

(The rest of Collin Cunningham's videos on Make blog are worth seeing also.)

The most important thing to understand about schematics, is that they abstract everything mechanical (positions, size and shape of components and wires), but keep everything electrical exact. You can then concentrate on the function of circuit, and take care of the build separately.

I like to think of wires in a schematic as if they were elastic : they can take any shape and any length you need to get the schematic clear and easy to understand. You can group together sub-circuits, and make easier to recognize some common building blocks.