Uh oh...are those wires?

Once upon a time(and you can only take my word for this) I was a pretty fair mechanic in the Navy.  Not 'small engine' stuff, but given drawings and tools, I could do a decent job of pump, valve and piping repair, which was a complete surprise to me since I hadn't done any of that growing up. 

The electical(and electronics) was a little outside my realm.  To qualify supervisory watches, I had to have a basic 'just enough to be dangerous' understanding.  Show me a schematic, and I could tell you if you planned 'tag-out' was safe, but I wasn't the guy you wanted swapping out your burnt out card, or rewinding an armature. 

Yesterday, while I was outside, my older daughter worked on assembling a Connex Spin n Turn Racer.  She has a few other basic 'working model' kits she has worked on assembling with help from my wife, but this is the first time my wife just sat her at the table and told her to see if she could follow the instructions herself.  And, she did a really good job.

The only part I got involved in at the end was supplying a few AA batteries, and some trouble shooting when those batteries didn't work. 

During my trouble shooting, there was a moment of horror on my part.  The wiring on the rig had exposed metal!  My daughter, in an effort to keep the 'spring connectors' together, had taped them all up with scotch tape, instead of flexing the connectors around the ends of the wire.  When we fixed that problem, the thing fired right up.  But...like I said, I'm not an electrician.  The box for the kit didn't show any kind of electrical tape on the wires or the connectors...so, the way I saw it, I had two options: run to the store for some electrical tape, or trust the picture on the box.

I trusted the picture on the box...so much so that I went ahead and stuck my fingers on a few of the exposed 'spring connectors'. 

Nuthin...I know, they are only AA batteries, without a capacitor in the rig, it shouldn't be too scary...but a slight shock is just the type of thing to scare my daughter away from a growing(potentially profitable) interest in electronics and robotics.

Guess I have some studying to do.