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Getting Youngsters Started In Electronics?
Ratface asks: "Having seen the recent question about resources for interesting youngsters in astronomy, I wondered if the Slashdot readership had any thoughts about getting started in electronics. I remember building crystal radios at school and poring over the Maplin catalogue, but I never got much further than that. I would hope that nowadays there are some great resources for the budding hardware designer to get started with." I remember my first electronic circuit which I designed way back in junior high school for a science project. I dived head first into concepts that I wouldn't completely understand until college, but it was rewarding nonetheless. What suggestions do you readers out there have for getting youngsters started in electronics? Should they start with basic electronics kits or would something a bit more challenging hold their interest, longer?
Yes, many of the projects can be duplicated with something pre-made from the local store but heck, there's nothing like doing it yourself & impressing one's parents ( parents - you claimed you liked the clay ashtrays - now get ready to go bonkers over the photoelectric light switch!)
As a non-parent, not-a-big-kid-fan these are great gifts. The kids really do seem to appreciate them, I get to feel I'm doing something good, and aside from the occasional "come look at what I made" it keeps the rugrats out from underfoot while the adults visit. Remember, toys are unisex & they're just as good for your niece as well as your nephew!
Here's the link (not embedded 'cause /. would break it):
http://www.radioshack.com/category.asp?catalog%5Fn ame=CTLG&category%5Fname=CTLG%5F009%5F001%5F000%5F 000&Page=1
I don't read ACs: If a post isn't worth so much as a nom de plume to its author then I wont bother either.
But the key is to find a group of local people that gather for a compeditive reason. If Lego robot wars are an option then that's the way to go. If (pulling this completely out of the air, so to speak) you have a local rocketry club that runs some sort of height competition, then go that way. Social interaction is important, but it needs a healthy competitive aspect or it gets very insular and irrelivant. Competition breeds innovation.
Back in my younger days, my father and I built a great number of heathkit kits. We built a vacuum tube volt-ohm meter, a digital circuit trainer (still works), and took some basic digital electronic self study courses. Not only were they a great way to do some father son stuff, but I (and he) learned a great deal from all of it.
I don't know if they still have all the kits and whatnot, but here's a link.
then it comes to be that the soothing light at the end of your tunnel is just a freight train coming your way
This is different/better(?) than the Lego Mindstorms approach because it actually involves connecting up some wires, soldering, all that good stuff.
www.HearMySoulSpeak.com
And get yourself the books "Getting Started In Electronics" and ALL of the little "Engineer's Handbook" books (recently updated, I noticed) by Forrest Mims. This man has started more people into electronics than I could possibly imagine. I hope he was compensated well by the publisher for his great contribution to electronics - I owe a lot of my start to get where I am now to him.
I CANNOT recommend these books highly enough and I'm suprised nobody else has. Once you get those, you can get on your way with some parts and things, but get them from someplace like DigiKey or Mouser and you'll save a lot of money experimenting. I also recommend surplus places, one in particular: BG Micro, they have lots of stuff to tinker with cheap.
Do you like digital stuff? Then go check out a Java-based TINI from Ibutton or even better, some of the kits that are available from Parallax Inc. They're expensive, but their stuff is quality and works.
Good luck on a rewarding and interesting hobby with almost no bounds!
..don't panic
I love electronics. It is wonderful. I believe there are several reasons for this:
I'm wired for it - Some people just have the mind set for kernel hacking, some for art, some for mechanics - it is a talent that I have and want to develop.
My father had a good bit of interest in electronics and computers when I was younger - I was always with him either watching or doing. We may be changing his brake pads one day, patching up a lamp cord the next, and wire-wrapping an interface to the zx-80 over the weekend. In this way he was a mentor of sorts.
He saw what I was interested in and he designed and presented opportunaties for me to develop that interest. It was the 300 in 1 electronics kit one christmas, or the modular mechanical globes for a birthday. Showing me how to run wires in the attic, why the whole-house fan was hooked up the way it was, using a timing light in the engine, simple programming examples on the various computers we owned. Giving me the old or used parts and pieces of equipment - This may have been the best way to learn. I would rip apart motors, solenoids, smash chips to see the dies, take old phones, toys and other things apart, and then I would ask him how something worked if I couldn't figure it out.
He didn't start me out on kits, and didn't give me them until I asked. I see now that when I had even a medium to low complexity kit that it was difficult to do without supervision - and I didn't want help, I wanted to do it by myself, and then get help when it didn't work. Unfortunately when it didn't work I had the tendency to skip it altogether and do something I knew I could do. So I would do an easy maybe 30 in one learning kit to start off with - it's difficult to blow things up with it, and easy to do things right.
So, in the end, 1) Encourage them to explore, 2) Provide opportunities to build, learn, and SUCCEED where they need very little physical help (ie, have them do all the work, you just provide tidbits of knowledge - let them do it their way, even if your way is faster - as long as it still works, great) 3) Get excited about their new knowledge and developments. They will surprise you sometimes with their knowledge - help them develop their problem solving and thinking skills by telling them when you were surprised that they thought of it themselves (even when it's old news to you). When they come to you with a problem or question - don't answer it. Ask them what they already know about the subject - anything related. Then ask them questions which will lead to the answer. If you can't think of a good way of doing that, then tell them the answer, and give a simple explanation of why, how, or an analogy.
Essentially these are little engineers - Their problem solving, thinking and discovery skills will be their most important tool they will have - whether they choose electronics or not.
-Adam
Electronics is changing your world - for good!
With all sorts of cheap electronic gadgets available, there isn't the same incentive to play around with electronics as there has been in the past. Who needs to build a shortwave radio to find people to talk to, when the Internet has made long distance chatting trivialy easy?
Work the other interests into it. If the child reads about Tesla... build a Tesla Coil. (I guess that would need some pretty good adult supervision, too).
What you can do is find things that interest the child and see how you can work electronics into it. If they are already into computers and basic programming, microcontrollers are a good start (and a personal favorite of mine) They can teach about the basics of computers without becoming overwhelming- the Microchip PIC series, especially the 16F84 is a good choice, relatively cheap, can be programmed with *really* cheap hardware, and the development tools from Microchip are free. You as the instructor must become proficient in them first, to not add to the frustration of your student. Blinking LEDs can be an introduction to the wide world of electronics- because once they know they can do it, they will be primed to learn more. There are a number of other microcontrollers that have even simpler programming interfaces than Microchip's- such as a Basic Stamp from Parallax.
To really keep their interest, you need to have payoff early- they need to see that they can do neat stuff before the theory gets pounded into them. Thankfully, with digital electronics, you don't have to worry as much about currents and Ohm's law to get results. The math will come, but it doesn't have to be the first part. They will be much more interested in learning why something works, after seeing it work, but you have to do both- a lot of the kits that you can find just show how to build it- without giving any insight into why it works. The why may be up to you. It will require work and commitment on both the teacher's part and the student's part.
This kit had a nickel-plated steel backplate, which was magnetic. The blocks were made of clear styrene plastic with white tops. There was a magnet inside the cube that held it in place on the backplate. There were springy copper conductor plates on the sides of the cubes, and these were connected to components inside the cube. The white plastic tops had standard schematic symbols marked on them. Ground was provided by the backplate.
I got one of these for Christmas when I was six, and I had built all thirty circuits by nightfall. I must have messed with this stuff daily for the next six months. All I had to do was arrange the blocks and occasionally stick a fresh nine volt in the battery cube. Lost track of the thing whan I was twelve. :(
Does anybody recognize this? Who built them? I want one again!
*whup* "Get along, little electrons. Heeyah!"