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I've had a lot of fun building their kits, and they've got projects all the way from goofy beginner stuff up to some pretty neat advanced builds.

To be fair, though, I don't believe they're much better about explaining the electronic wizardry than the kits designed for kids.

If you want to learn more about electronic design, one of the best methods would be to pick something you're interested in building and get involved with the existing online community. Since the designs on these sites are open and constantly being tweaked, you can jump in and get your hands dirty.

For instance, if you play guitar, check out the DIY Stomp Boxes page.

If you're a freak like me for decorating at Halloween, build your own electronic Halloween projects. I built a Velleman "light organ" from a kit I found on that page, and built the electronic flicker bulb project from schematics.

Just remember not to get frustrated. You learn a lot more when things go WRONG than when they go right!

..in the late '90s, with a chain of stores called http://www.techam.com/">"Tech America" I believe they had 5 of them in a few major cities. I know that there was one in Atlanta, and recall that they also had stores in Phoenix, Denver, and Dallas. They were kind of like a Frys Electronics minus the movie & video section... computer components, electronic parts, a decent semi-professional DJ equipment selection, etc. They even had a wide range of assemble-it-yourself kits from companies like Velleman. I suppose it wasn't profitable, as they closed the stores after just a few years. Just before they shut their doors they http://www.techam.com/">renamed the stores from "Tech America" to "Radioshack.Com"

There is a very high quality oscilloscope box from Velleman. It has it's own box and probes with software package together in the box.

They use the software package Scope-It as "digital storage oscilloscope and spectrum analyser". They also have a demo downloadable at that page.

PCS641, PCS500 (PC-Scope 50MHz) and with adapter.

There is a very high quality oscilloscope box from Velleman. It has it's own box and probes with software package together in the box.

They use the software package Scope-It as "digital storage oscilloscope and spectrum analyser". They also have a demo downloadable at that page.

PCS641, PCS500 (PC-Scope 50MHz) and with adapter.

There is a very high quality oscilloscope box from Velleman. It has it's own box and probes with software package together in the box.

They use the software package Scope-It as "digital storage oscilloscope and spectrum analyser". They also have a demo downloadable at that page.

PCS641, PCS500 (PC-Scope 50MHz) and with adapter.

There is a very high quality oscilloscope box from Velleman. It has it's own box and probes with software package together in the box.

They use the software package Scope-It as "digital storage oscilloscope and spectrum analyser". They also have a demo downloadable at that page.

PCS641, PCS500 (PC-Scope 50MHz) and with adapter.

There is a very high quality oscilloscope box from Velleman. It has it's own box and probes with software package together in the box.

They use the software package Scope-It as "digital storage oscilloscope and spectrum analyser". They also have a demo downloadable at that page.

PCS641, PCS500 (PC-Scope 50MHz) and with adapter.

I have one of the Protek PC ISA oscope cards. It's about a 4Mhz card and is dual trace. It works ok, but not well enough for analyzing video signals. It has some decent software and logging capabilites. It's manufactured by Hung Chang. Price: $220-$249

The other scope I have is a Velleman handheld. It works really well. For $249 it's the best thing I've seen. It's based on a PIC microprocesor and is single trace with a 5Mhz bandwidth. Some of them have PC interfaces, mine doesn't. Here's Velleman's website.