1st solder project

My first solder project, the minty boost! It's a portable usb power that can charge many things such even my iphone 3g. The minty boost is designed by http://ladyada.net/make/index.html This is what the minty boost looks like. My first try is not so smooth. I was too nervous, because I didn't want to mess anything up and I wasn't paying enough attention to what I was doing. So I soldered the IC socket and the schottky diode the wrong way. My solder pencil was too close to the circuit and melted the surface alittle bit.. I have no idea if that caused any additional damage. When I thought finally it's ready for a test run, the board started to smell burnt and I realized I forgot to put in the last piece, converter chip, before putting in the battery. I started to panic and tried to stick the chip in, and the chip immediately got really hot - I forgot to take out the batteries and the current was literally going through my fingers...

my work area

The black thing is the ic socket..it's placed in opposite side. I screwed up pretty early on.

the yellowy part is where the board was melted

looks good, but it's sad that I had no idea it's not put together correctly

The second try was like a breeze, everything was soldered and tested working in under 30 min. I'm absolutely impressed with the creator coming up with this cool idea.