Electric or science toy kits that are decent

buy a book and some "real" parts - there used to be a simple book on making crystal and one tube radios, called "the boy's first book of radio and electronics" - get a book like that, a spool of magnet wire and a box of diodes and he's all set to make crystal sets, and maybe a small motor (just add a nail or two for pole pieces.

much better than kits - if I could do it at 6, so can he

Bill

to contact me, do not reply to this message, instead correct this address and use it

will iam_ b_ No ble at msn daught com

*** Free account sponsored by SecureIX.com *** *** Encrypt your Internet usage with a free VPN account from ***

According to William B Noble (don't reply to this address) :

Can you still get the cylindrical cardboard oatmeal boxes for coil forms?

Enjoy, DoN.

--
 Email:      | Voice (all times): (703) 938-4564
	(too) near Washington D.C. | http://www.d-and-d.com/dnichols/DoN.html
           --- Black Holes are where God is dividing by zero ---

Try Radio Shack?

They have/had a series of "Engineers" Mini-Notebooks on a bunch of subjects.

They also may still carry Forest Mimm's "Geting Started in Electronics".

:

Yep! Minute Oats - microwave in a minute...

:

Yes. Toilet paper roll also works. PVC pipe. I have some plastic tubes that used to contain some kind of medical supplies; they make fine coil forms.

A trench radio is retro and therefore very cool; it uses a razor blade and pencil lead for a detector instead of a diode or crystal + "whisker".

I've seen people use toilet paper rolls!

Needs a lot more turns, of course...

It's also reasonable to build "quads" using just a couple wooden dowels (or popsicle sticks or...) as supports.

--FWIW the Vex kits from Radio Shack have been discontinued. At a guess the cost of the basic system ($300) was waaaay too high a price to join the club, so to speak. But now, if you're lucky you can get the things for around $100 until they're all gone. Got mine yesterday, heh.

--
        "Steamboat Ed" Haas         :  Concave, convex, con      
        Hacking the Trailing Edge!  :  carne: all is Zen..
                          www.nmpproducts.com
                   ---Decks a-wash in a sea of words---

electronic measurement for hobby :

The Elenco snap circuits kit that I ended up buying for my nephew, I liked enough to buy for my 4.5 year old son also.

I received it and it is a great toy, well made, with many useful circuits. It helps show how electricity flows, etc. My son could follow directions and build stuff by himself, without me present in the room.

It is highly recommended. We got the junior version, but will buy him a next version for his birthday.

The kit includes a DC motor that launches a little helicopter blade like thing in the air.

i

[snip]

I had one of those when I was a kid, except it had a string you wound up and then pulled. Boy would that thing go way up in the air!

...Jim Thompson

-- | James E.Thompson, P.E. | mens | | Analog Innovations, Inc. | et | | Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC's and Discrete Systems | manus | | Phoenix, Arizona Voice:(480)460-2350 | | | E-mail Address at Website Fax:(480)460-2142 | Brass Rat | |

| 1962 | I love to cook with wine. Sometimes I even put it in the food.

It's fun, but they don't really explain what's going on. There are a couple of integrated circuits in little blocks, and they tell you how to hook them up to make noises & such. However, there is no info on what's in the blocks, what they do exactly, how they work, etc. It's a fun toy, and hopefully will foster some curiosity, but it has limits in the educational department.

Doug White

Just a comment but Rat Shack has the whole Vex Robotics system for half price or less--they seem to be closing it out. Very nice system at that price.

--
--John
to email, dial "usenet" and validate
(was jclarke at eye bee em dot net)

While I agree with your assessment Doug we must remember this is for a young child.

Long journeys start with but a single step...an interest in electronics starts with discovering the enjoyment of learning.

TMT

I agree. That toy has many projects that he can accomplish completely by himself and that he thinks are great accomplishments. That is good already. If the only thing that he learns is that electricity needs a complete path to follow, and could visualize that in any universal situation, that would already be a sifficiently important outcome.

i

Geomag is very good. I bought a set for the kids of a friend of mine (five and 14) and they love it. Optimising a construction so that the links are as strong as possible can be quite challenging.

I spent several hours playing with it before I gave it to them, so it must be good!

Leon

Leon

You might or might not be surprised to learn how many people _don't_ understand that. Learning the concept of "circuit" would put him at least one step up on a lot of people.

Then there was my Great Aunt Nelly, who insisted her son cover all unoccupied outlets -- so the electricity couldn't leak out and do who-knows-what to everybody in the house.

I was always surprised how many very bright, brave, and skilled craftsmen expressed a fear of electricity. Many seemed to have a fear of it because it was something invisible that could hurt them. 'course, that's why they paid us electricians the big (yeah, right) bucks! :)

Neat thing about Vex is that if you take away the electronic parts it's still a pretty good Meccano set--the parts are not made by Meccano but they are instantly recognizable as being in the same general family and compared to "real" Meccano parts they're a bit heavier gage. If he doesn't already have a Meccano set Vex would be an incredibly good starter.

Add the electronics and you have what amounts to a good Meccano set with _really_ good (compared to anything Meccano ever shipped in their sets) motors and a remote control.

One way to introduce the electronics would be to set it up with one servo on the controller so he has a motor and let him do things with that and when he wants more then show him how to hook up the other servos and when he wants more then show him how to use the sensors that are provided using the canned programming and when he's exhausted what he can do with that then it's time to get into programming. This is the kind of thing that if his mind goes in those directions he'll still be dinking with in grad school.

Haven't played with the Lego Mindstorms--presumably the same considerations apply, but I don't know how good their servos are.

I had Meccano when I was a kid, my parents gave me a different block system that was incompatible with Lego so I never got into Legos. So with that background I'd have done quite a lot for a Vex system.

--
--John
to email, dial "usenet" and validate
(was jclarke at eye bee em dot net)

Yes, I think that it is a good start to learn the foundations. A lot of people live in complete darkness as far as many concepts are concerned, sometimes it is unbelievable.

i