Kids and Electronics

What sort of age?

Crystal set is still a good one even today.

A nice one for those who have mastered soldering is a classic flashing eyes robot based around a bistable multivibrator with the transistors for arms, resistors for legs and ears and capacitors for body.

Startrek red alert siren and dalek voice are other relatively easy ones. (although the resulting device may drive you crazy)

Don't limit it to just electronics though - any scientific curiosity deserves to be encouraged.

Gyroscopes, magnets and toys that use centre of gravity tricks to achieve what looks impossible are good ones. Likewise flickbook hand animation if they are good at drawing and patient enough to do it.

Growing crystals is a fun one too on the chemistry side of things. Table salt and potash alum are relatively harmless and doable.

Another quick and dirty: bicarb + vinegar in test tube with bung and small pipe => fire extinguisher.

Let's them experiment with how to mix components at the right time.

Or boil up some red cabbage => litmus, then drop vinegar and bicarb on it. Let them draw pictures on a leaf, and eat it.

Thanks for the reminder. Have had some high school kids tear apart some microwave ovens. They enjoyed it, their parents not so much.

Dan

When I was a kid, my father brought all sorts of surplus stuff home so I could tear it apart to see how it worked (auto-pilots were really cool). He wanted the screws. ;-)

interested in electronics. My father managed to interest me by making wit h me things as motors out of wire and paper clips, crystal sets using gale na and trying to make one using a razor blade as a diode. Books and magazi nes were good for me, but my grandson does not read a lot.

At five I got started with magnets. Loved 'em. Then I discovered speakers had magnets, motors had magnets, etc., and started scavenging old TVs, radios, toys and appliances with motors. Tore apart a number of old stereos to get the speakers & extract the gold: magnets.

That led to the ol' wire-wrapped nail and a D-cell--an electromagnet. Which was cool.

I bought a soldering iron, just because it could melt metal, which was neat .

By about seven, all of that led to me getting some basic kits with knife switches and lamps for presents, learning about series and parallel circuits, and so on. And then a crystal radio. The rest was inevitable.

Cheers, James Arthur

interested in electronics. My father managed to interest me by making wit h me things as motors out of wire and paper clips, crystal sets using gale na and trying to make one using a razor blade as a diode. Books and magazi nes were good for me, but my grandson does not read a lot.

Don't forget about motors!

There's always something magical about making something that moves.

Cheers, James Arthur

interested in electronics. My father managed to interest me by making wit h me things as motors out of wire and paper clips, crystal sets using gale na and trying to make one using a razor blade as a diode. Books and magazi nes were good for me, but my grandson does not read a lot.

It depends on the kid's age and technical aptitude. Is he/she a nerd about science, or has just a regular general interest for science?

For a 4-5 year-old, I would choose a kit with simple goals (re batteries, L EDs, DC motors, electromagnets). For 6+ yrs., I would add basic electronic parts and the solderless breadboard. See my blog: transistorize.me

At age 8, if he/she is still loving it, then I'd teach them soldering.

IMHO, building kits is questionable for learning. They usually have a speci fic goal, and usually forgo "educating" the kit builder. But if they have g ood instructions and the kid is successful, he/she feels good reward (assum ing he/she can really use what he/she has built).

The "150-in-one" Labs are more educational, but harder to mess with. They'r e just so bulky and the projects use a messy lots of wires.

interested in electronics. My father managed to interest me by making wit h me things as motors out of wire and paper clips, crystal sets using gale na and trying to make one using a razor blade as a diode. Books and magazi nes were good for me, but my grandson does not read a lot.

Thanks for asking this.

It depends on the kid's age.

For a 4-5 year-old, I would choose a kit with simple goals (re batteries, LEDs, DC motors, electromagnets). For 6+ yrs., I would add basic electronic parts and the solderless breadboard. See my blog: transistorize.me

At age 8, if he/she is still loving it, then I'd teach them soldering. An/or programming (see Rasp. Pi).

IMHO, building kits is questionable for learning. They usually have a specific goal, and usually forgo "educating" the kit builder. But if they have good instructions and the kid is successful, he/she gets a good reward (assuming he/she can really use what he/she has built).

The "150-in-one" Labs can be more educational, but harder to mess with. They're just so bulky and the projects use a mess of wires.

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.

What I did: take one of the spring based kits, pull the components off and bin the instructions. Add a bunch more parts & get some more springs. Now y ou can build any circuit you find online, upto the limit of spring connecti ons. When that limit is reached, add more springs.

The builder is then stringing parts not wires, and is thinking about moving the circuit from screen to board rather than adding wires from 13 to 48 et c. And they get to see what's wrong with some circuits, and they build what ever they want rather than the pathetic offering in the instruction book.

NT

Knight Kit was sold by Allied Radio.