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Dick Smith (if they are in the us, maybe something similar) sells kits with full instructions. they need to be soldered, but year 9s should be able to do this - I had year 8s solder successfully. they will need to be reminded of first aid treatment for burns first. they can build light detectors, movement detectors, radio recievers, sirens, simple electric pianos etc.

I started with "Funway into Electronics" which was developed by Dick Smith Electronics http://search.dse.com.au/electronics/Funway%20Into%20Electronics - I'm not sure what equivalents are available in other countries though. Those prices are in AUD but a complete (Funway 1) kit will still be above your budget, though it will let you demonstrate 20 different circuits. By the time I was in high school I had done most of Funway 2 and some of Funway 3 - which are soldered PCBs.

Knock yourself out
http://search.dse.com.au/nav/cat2/electronicsandkitsets_kitsets/cat1/electronicsandkitsets/0

As an aside, 25 years ago I won a competition in high school with dick smith with a prize of $50 worth of electronic components.
I was thinking beauty, the things I'll be able to make!
What did I get?
just what every kid wants... a box of 5000 22pF NPO capacitors...

I take up your challenge:

Printer: http://search.dse.com.au/nav/cat2/computersandofficeequipment_printersscannersandfax/cat1/computers-and-office-equipment/0?sessionid=4a2c65840edb2330273fc0a87e0106aa

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=953292&page=2

Solution, go to canon website download .debs in a tar. Install and done.

I am actually too lazy to try DVB cards or wireless cards, but I have found the DVB cards work out of the box on Linux usually. My wireless card has given me problems but there are open source drivers which can be easily downloaded and compiled.

Case in point though. I have a USB webcam where the windows drivers have been lost, it works out of the box on ubuntu, you can not find the drivers anywhere for Windows though!

If your problem is interference from non-hidden networks, chances are they are also set to run on the default channel (here it tends to be channel 6) so you could try setting your router and NIC to use (say) 1 or 11. Some of the others might be worth a try, but there is more overlap. You could also improve your reception by using an antenna like this, bearing in mind that since this "shouts louder" than your neighbours, a bit more care is required to secure your connection.

Try the Funway into Electronics series from Dick Smith or the Short Circuit Series from Jaycar. They are written to be simple enough for kids but are actually soundly based and suitable as a first step for adults. Each project aims to demonstrate a principle, includes explanation and builds on previous projects to form a short course. The books are the most important thing. The mentioned shops sell accompanying kits but the components are all generic and can be picked up at any electronics store around the world.

Funway was my first exposure to electronics and today I am a professional electrical engineer (with a few intervening steps required).

Whilst there are few real details in the video or article, the first warning bell is "10 to 30 times as efficient as the best microturbines."

Since the 'best' microturbines are say 30-40% efficient. So these machines are 300 to 1200% efficient according to the article (the vid didn't claim this).

Even if, as the article says, these are more efficient than a wind turbine at low wind speeds thats not really that important. Even if high wind speeds are rare they contain much more power than low wind speeds (the power available scales with the cube of wind speed), and wind turbines are designed with this in mind.

A couple more problems, How do they turn with the wind?

How do they deal with strong winds? I can see them being torn apart like the tacomma bridge.

40mW is not very much. There is a reason you don't built turbines this small, solar cell plus batter combination works much better. No moving parts.

A quick google gives a 250mW solar cell = $9AUD from a expensive hobby shop http://www.dse.com.au/cgi-bin/dse.storefront/4712383302567b142741c0a87f9c0682/Product/View/O2013
Given the sun doesn't shine all day and what not that would probably work out to be close to an average of 40mW.

As for the 10W's in a 5-10mph wind.... You wouldn't bother with a small wind turbine. Here are some quick calcs:

At 5mph wind, a horizontal axis wind turbine capturing 25% of all available energy (which is conservative) would need a diameter of ~2.7m.
At 10mph, this becomes ~1m...

To put this into perspective a typical 3m diameter wind turbine would be rated at 600W at 10m/s (~22mph) so the idea of designing for 5mph seems impractical.

Assuming the frame has an aspect ratio of 10:1, and assuming that the windbelt captures 25% of wind through the frame (i'm being generous) then at 5mph you would need a 21.6m x 2.2m frame and at 10mph a 4.6 x .5m frame.

There is only so much energy in the wind, and buggar all at low wind speeds, horizontal axis wind turbines can operate very close to the betz limit, I would bet that the windbelt is impractical in practice and doesn't come close.

same price?

ps3 (AU$999)
xbox 360 (AU$599)

no ps3 price drop announced for australia yet, and for the AU$400 difference you could afford a goddamn wii. same price my ass

as for reliability, you're right. I have not bought a 360 yet, because i dont like the failure rates that are being reported. I havent bought a wii because there's been no interesting games releases since it's launch (where the hell is mario galaxy already?). I havent bought a PS3 because it costs more than the other two combined and has less interesting games than the wii.

same price?

ps3 (AU$999)
xbox 360 (AU$599)

no ps3 price drop announced for australia yet, and for the AU$400 difference you could afford a goddamn wii. same price my ass

as for reliability, you're right. I have not bought a 360 yet, because i dont like the failure rates that are being reported. I havent bought a wii because there's been no interesting games releases since it's launch (where the hell is mario galaxy already?). I havent bought a PS3 because it costs more than the other two combined and has less interesting games than the wii.

same price?

ps3 (AU$999)
xbox 360 (AU$599)

no ps3 price drop announced for australia yet, and for the AU$400 difference you could afford a goddamn wii. same price my ass

as for reliability, you're right. I have not bought a 360 yet, because i dont like the failure rates that are being reported. I havent bought a wii because there's been no interesting games releases since it's launch (where the hell is mario galaxy already?). I havent bought a PS3 because it costs more than the other two combined and has less interesting games than the wii.

Dick Smith Electronics sells a few of these. You can find the 300-in-1 kit by visiting the main page and searching for "K0030" (for some reason they prevent deep-linking). I played with a few of these things back in the day and I remember them being pretty fun. However, these days I'd probably recommend Lego Mindstorms instead. With the kit, you're pretty much stuck with the 300 (or whatever) things it can make. With Mindstorms there's a huge fan base with new things being created and details published all the time.

I brought this Energy Meter to see how much my computers were using (about 240 Watts per hour). So I hooked it up to my sterio system, 1 7.1 surround amp, 68cm TV, 5 Disk CD player DVD/VCR Cable Box, Saterlite Box and Sub Amp, in stand-by the whole thing pulls less than 34 Watts and when all is running less than 100 Watts. You would save more greenhouse gasses if you were to stop farting. If you really wanted to save greenhouse gasses, go Solar, or just get your gas and electricity cut off... PS. and stop farting :)

Wah? There are plenty of HD Receivers available.

Just a quick search on Dick Smith's website reveals These Receivers, of which 3 of the 8 are High Def.

There are plenty of them around... you really just haven't looked.

And HD TVs? Man, there's heaps... just walk into any electronics store and have a look...

You're just making stuff up.

For us Aussie geeks there's a similar place called Oatley Electronics. A mixture of surplus gear with new stuff and kits. I've never dealt with them but they always seem to have interesting gear.

There's also Jaycar, which has stuck to the hobbyist theme. It's a shame that Dick Smith sold Dick Smith Electronics all those years ago. Now it mostly focuses on consumer goods (stereos, TV's, CD/DVD players, etc) rather than on components and kits. My dad told me that back in the day, most stores had people that could assist you with kit building.

But the exclusive Australian distributor, Dick Smith Electronics, wasn't willing to upgrade it to 2GB of RAM and Windows XP Professional.

I wasn't willing to buy it with only 512MB of RAM and Windows XP Home edition.

Anyroad up, doesn't anybody remember the first soundcards? Strings of resistors off the parallel port.

Dick Smith in NZ and Dick Smith in Oz sell "Funway" kits and manuals. From what I've seen, they're fairly lame, but might be OK for a beginner. You can make doorbells, audio amplifiers, electronic dice etc.

...but Dick Smith? Does this mean that had some other Australian actor named Dick Smith wanted to get into show business, he would have had to have changed his name or risked a law suit?

Nope, you've misread (or misunderstood) the article, which says, "Australian entrepreneur Dick Smith."

This Dick Smith has a large chain of electronic shops, called "Dick Smith Electronics" in Australia & New Zealand and also has many other products including foodstuffs and 'dickheads' matches (which subject to another bizarre lawsuit). His picture is on every electronics shop and he looks like some kind of uber-geek - like Bill Gates, but even more so.

HH

no, a match is not but these are. and they come in handy for more than lighting cigarettes too

Dammit, they prevent deep linking. Go to www.dse.com.au and put in the product code "X7426"

Here is a link to the 4CD holders...