Teaching Your Kid Electronics

The one I had used terminal strips. was in its own plastic case wich was a bit like a lunch box, with speaker, tuning capacitor , vol knob, on off switch etc.

Colin =^.^=

I did some electronics with my 9yo nephew. The main problem was that his expectations were driven by what he could buy in the toy shops. Things built on matrix board like light operated switches and AM radios with earpieces didn't cut it at all. He wanted to build things like a radio controlled car. I'm not sure what I could have done better. Any suggestions for next time would be appreciated.

messagenews: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com...

Buy lots of relatively inexpensive toys and then start prying them open and hack stuff together. Then put a PIC in there somewhere.

When I was a kid, there wasn't high tech toys (that my parents could afford) so I didn't have much competing with the 75inOne electronic kit.. These days... An electronic kit is really lame compared to XBox, PS4 and RC cars (as mentioned). It's not impressive to make an LED blinker or whooper sound effect. It also doesn't make you the cool kid on the block. An intro to electronics is going to need flash, bang and zoom to capture attention. AFAIK there isn't anything like that.

I wonder how well Mechno and Leggo are doing..Sales dropping over the decade? D from BC

messagenews: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com...

lol..

Father: Ok son..today were going to crack open "Tickle Me Elmo" Son: Noooooo!

Tickle Me Elmo can be seen on

Those electronics designers must have had lots of fun. D from BC

I was at a barbecue a few weeks ago and the 9-12 yo set was getting a lot of mileage out of a remote controlled fart generator. Place transducer under chair Wait for lady to sit on chair Push button to activate fart. Peals of laughter, rolling on ground clutching sides etc.

You have to work to your audience.

Bob Stephens

Was it a kit ? Or was it a Frankenstein project, say MP3+amp+speaker+garage door opener? D from BC

One of the kids' dad imports wholesale lots of electronic junk from the far east, so this was probably a packaged product. It wouldn't be hard to kit one up though. This one consisted of a wireless fob and a small black box containing electronic farts!

Bob Stephens

I used to love capsela, sort of like lego but bigger and with wires, lights, motors, etc. I used to have a simple computer so you could program things like:

forward polarity to motor 1 and 2 for 1 period forward polarity to motor 2 for 1 period lights on for one period reverse polarity to motor 1 and 2 for 3 periods etc

Obviously it didn't talk about polarity, it was just backwards and forwards, but you quickly realised that by swapping the red and blue wires you achieved the same thing.

I imagine that by now there would be some sort of remote control.

It also gave an introduction to mechanics, 1 gearbox went fast but wouldnt move any weight, another one was slower but could carry stuff.

-- Michael Heydon

Son, viewing the monthly fold-out of dad's adult literature: "Dad, what's a rack?" Dad, snatching away the magazine: "It's a country, son..."

FBt

Father: Google for a picture of Phil Allison.

D from BC

sounds like this one:

Jaycar do some kits that hack this and use the transmitter/receiver pair for other purposes.

Bye. Jasen

Dare you to name boob #1... :) D from BC

I thought we hammered that out a long time ago. Homer is the #1 boob, of course. OTOH, If he ever finds work that will make him a boob job. He shares the title with Phil. Homer has the Northern hemisphere, and Phil has the Southern hemisphere. You know how big boobs sag, without support.