Christmas is coming. So am looking for things that can get the grandkids i nterested in electronics. My father managed to interest me by making with me things as motors out of wire and paper clips, crystal sets using galena and trying to make one using a razor blade as a diode. Books and magazine s were good for me, but my grandson does not read a lot.
Anyone have some projects that kids would enjoy?
How about music and electronics at the same time? Like this hybrid analog/digital MIDI synthesizer kit?
Or maybe at the high end a hackable robot development kit?
I got interested in the late 1980s by way of the model train layout my Dad helped me build; I was the youngest of four by a longshot though so our relationship was a bit more like a grandfather/grandson one. Stuff like this I would've been thrilled to get as a Christmas gift back then, had it been available...;-)
I probably can't be of much help because I doubt you'll find much. Used to be we had local Heathkit places and Lafayette I think sold Knight kits. I r emember the olman and me with my first kit, build a small transmitter. Hear ing my voice coming out of the big stereo in the livingroom was so cool.
The thing had springs to make the connections. Pull up, insert wire from th e transistor or whatever and release. Super simple, I think it only came wi th two transistors. I doubt you'll have the same effect with a modern day b readboard, though some of them do come with some parts and sample circuits to build, maybe something like that. I would try to get one with discrete c omponents as that will teach more, at least if he does RTFM.
Things like Heathkits teach how to solder and all that, mechanical skills, but not so much electronics. That is in the manual, the nuts and bolts cann ot replace the manual. The key to that is reading of course. When I was a k id I actually preferred books to toys for Christmas. I really don't know ho w to instill that kind of interest, if it even can be done. It may be you a re born with it.
A nice simple kit, and depending on the age I think a small transmitter wou ld be good, something to make the kid say "How the heck does this thing wor k ?". You can't force feed them, that's the job of the schools and you see the results of that.
It really is too bad that technology has gotten so out of hand. Before I wa s a teenager I took two transformers from tube equipment and ran them inlin e to boost up the voltage and had a "jabob's ladder" made with two coathang ers embedded into a piece of styrofoam. Of course it could only run for a s hort time because the second tranformer was working well beyond its ratings . But I could have died very easily.
Then we rent this house and there is a really old TV there. I stick my hand in and ZZZAP ! It had the old style CRT with the metal bell, not aquadag. I still have the HV filtering caps from it.
Now, like at schools, everything has to be battery powered usually. Someone was on Usenet here a few years ago wanted to do a little demonstration/lec ture type thing on electronics and found out they would not allow him to br ing in a scope because it plugged into the wall. I guess I can understand b ut it is a shame that our sue happy society has gotten to this point.
Maybe the best thing would be YOU. got a workshop in your basement ? Got a scope ? An old CRO is a powerful brainmagnet. How about get the kid an old
20 MHz job for like $35 on eBay and just a few things to test, like a micro phone, or speaker. If he has any interest he will be hooking it up to every thing, but that is not necessarily the way to go. Teach him what voltage is , and I mean administer an electric shock at least once so he learns to res pect electricity. Remember it can still be lethal. Couple of shock taught m e, boy did they teach me. Had the circumstances been a bit different I coul d have been dead right then and there.But the CRO I think is a decent idea. He can hook it up to some speaker wir es and get the idea what sound is, and then turn up the bass and see the bi g waves get bigger, or turn up the treble and see the little waves get bigg er. Learn what frequency is. Maybe even find him one of those cheap Casio k eyboards that run on a wallwart and make an adapter so he can hook the scop e to that.
It is kinda a same that the young of today can't start where we started. Yo u could break open a tube and see the grids and get a real idea of how the thing works. Can't do that with a transistor. Even less so with an IC.
Just throwing some ideas here, you know the situation, I don't. He doesn't like to read ? I would address that. Bring him to your Man cave and show hi m some cool stuff and sooner or later you get "How does that work ?". Then you got him. break out a book. (or these days wiki it, but that is still re ading)
I like the sound of that.
Kids love LEDs. A 9-volt battery, a bunch of LEDs, some resistors, and some clip leads might start some instincts.
-- John Larkin Highland Technology, Inc picosecond timing precision measurement jlarkin att highlandtechnology dott com http://www.highlandtechnology.com
Even at ~$80 it seems like a pretty good value. You can barely buy one new release vidja game for that nowadays.
Not quite electronics, but certainly tech.
The guy who runs the place is a former client of mine building strobe lights. He got squeezed between China always copying his products and the recession of 08 -- so he changed his direction and came up with this stuff.
-- Tim Wescott Wescott Design Services http://www.wescottdesign.com I'm looking for work -- see my website!
Brick and mortar kit shops are pretty much gone with the snows of yesteryear, but when it comes to online retailers I think we're really living in the Golden Age of DIY products. Robots, music synthesizers, transmitters, whatever you want is out there. It's getting to the point where any weird gizmo you may have a need for you can whip up in a few hours out of modular parts on a backplane, tied together with some scripting code downloaded from your PC.
A friend of mine needed a one-off audio switching box controlled by MIDI for a theater production, but nothing quite right was available off the shelf (at least not for any reasonable price.)
Picked up a 4 output stereo audio switching kit board from Shenzen on eBay for $8, it was here in under a week. Grabbed a $5 AVR "Arduino" breakout board from my bin, wired it up, pulled some open-source UART MIDI code from GitHub, spent about an hour editing it for the application, then put the stuff in a little plexi case with the in/outs and a MIDI port with optoisolator. Done. Not even a full weekend project.
Bought this...
for 8-year-old grandson last Christmas.
He of limited attention span... he's the jock of the family, ice hockey super-star... but he went ballistic over this kit to such an extent that a few days later his father had to buy the super-duper version ;-) ...Jim Thompson
-- | James E.Thompson | mens | | Analog Innovations | et | | Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC's and Discrete Systems | manus | | STV, Queen Creek, AZ 85142 Skype: skypeanalog | | | Voice:(480)460-2350 Fax: Available upon request | Brass Rat | | E-mail Icon at http://www.analog-innovations.com | 1962 |
I wouldn't try to impose anything below Raspberry Pi.
You should forget that kids would be interested in soldering for the sake of soldering.
That looks like a great product. Like those "300 in 1" kits I remember as a kid, but without those awful spring terminals and jumper wires.
The one I had as a kid was gifted to me by my older brother, its selling gimmick was that it had a "Space Age Integrated Circuit"; a little 16 pin chip in the center that had a bunch of resistors, diodes, and transistors in the same package.
s interested in electronics. My father managed to interest me by making wi th me things as motors out of wire and paper clips, crystal sets using gal ena and trying to make one using a razor blade as a diode. Books and magaz ines were good for me, but my grandson does not read a lot.
+1 snap circuits was what I was going to recommend.George H.
Wow, those are some handsome-looking robots!
I really like the guy who runs the place. His formal education ended in high school, but he still manages to do almost all of his own circuit design and at least some of his own software work.
-- Tim Wescott Wescott Design Services http://www.wescottdesign.com I'm looking for work -- see my website!
Others have suggested many good ideas but here is another approach:
The perfect Christmas present for a youngster may be a toolbox with a few key tools.
Suggestions: Small hammer Pair of gas pliers Pair of long-nose pliers with side cutters Pair of diagonal wire cutters Medium Philips screwdriver Quarter inch flat screwdriver LED flashlight
If you get good quality tools, they will keep them forever.
Fred
Obviously it has to be tailored to the individual, but something simple and quick is wire + battery + magnets => "train"
For something with greater scope for expansion, a strip or panel of individually addressable RGB "NeoPixel" LEDs, an Arduino, and the relevant Arduino libraries.
Kids of all ages seem to like pretty coloured blinkenlights :)
ds interested in electronics. My father managed to interest me by making w ith me things as motors out of wire and paper clips, crystal sets using ga lena and trying to make one using a razor blade as a diode. Books and maga zines were good for me, but my grandson does not read a lot.
Boy lots of good suggestion, but I think the battery plus magnets going t hru a coil of copper wire will definitely be one of the things under the tr ee.
Dan
Add a hunk of copper pipe.
They have already dropped magnets down a copper pipe.
Dan
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