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DuinoKit Helps Teach Students About Electronics (Video)

Posted by Roblimo on from the you-don't-even-have-to-know-how-to-solder dept.

This is something Timothy Lord ran across a few months ago at a Maker Faire near Atlanta: The DuinoKit. Think of it as a fancier (and pricier) version of the venerable Radio Shack Electronic Learning Labs and you won't be far off. Plus, as the name DuinoKit implies, it's based on an Arduino, which means that right off the bat it packs a lot more learning punch than the Radio Shack kit. DuinoKit was financed by a KickStarter campaign that asked for $19,500 and raised $57,478 from 250 backers. And for those of you who worry about being called nerds because you're carrying a DuinoKit around, you can relax. It comes in a 'Secret Agent Carrying Case.' Really. Read their What is the DuinoKit? Web page carefully and you'll see. (Alternate Video Link)

61 comments

  1. No... by buckfeta2014 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    It doesn't teach you electronics. It teaches you the arduino IDE platform and pinouts. Stop calling it electronics. If you really want to learn electronics, you would fab your own board and solder the microprocessor to it yourself.

    --
    Buck Feta. You know what to do.
    1. Re:No... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      That's not electronics either. Electronics is about physics, you'd like to play with a vacuum tube to actually see a hot cathode and measure currents.

    2. Re:No... by nospam007 · · Score: 4, Funny

      You're both wrong, real electronics is rubbing a cat against a glass rod.

    3. Re:No... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

      We used to dream about having a cat.... we had to make do with a wadded-up dustball. But it were a cat to us.

    4. Re:No... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      It teaches interfacing computer code with hardware, and in the process it exposes the users to a bit of circuit theory, mostly when things go wrong. So in a sense it is a very basic introduction to electronics.

      Rubbing a cat against a glass rod and playing with a vacuum tube is more on the physics side. "Electronics" is building your own Airband receiver and listening to ATC communication, or building a robot that would do something entirely useless or another.

      And while we're at it, "Electrical" is typically used with large scale energy generation/conversion/storage.

    5. Re:No... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I would hate to see the dingleberries clinging to that bunghole...

    6. Re:No... by halivar · · Score: 3, Funny

      A dustball? Luxury! We had to scrape our skin with Brillo pads for a week to collect enough dust for a whole ball.

    7. Re:No... by Antony8GVM · · Score: 1

      Hmm, this line of thinking sounds familiar.

      "It doesn't teach you programming. It teaches you to copy paste, re-use code, and object oriented design. Stop calling it programming. If you really want to learn programming, you would learn Assembly you would fab your own libraries and DLLs and include them in your code yourself to solve problems that have already been efficiently solved because doing everything from scratch is for real men and building upon scientific advancements and technology is for losers."

    8. Re:No... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      They better make a "girls edition" of this quick before this project gets shutdown by the tech SJWs.

    9. Re:No... by SuperGus · · Score: 1

      Bah, that's nothing - 13.8 billion years ago we were able to stand tall and call it Electroweaktricity!

    10. Re:No... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      http://www.snapcircuits.net/ is a great introduction to electronics for the young'uns. It even has a micro controller: http://www.snapcircuits.net/products/product_details/u21_picaxe_micro_ic_in_socket=ODQ3

    11. Re:No... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Oh, on that note, are the Lewin OCW lectures still not reinstated?

    12. Re:No... by JaredOfEuropa · · Score: 1

      If you're learning electronics, it's a bit weird to start with a microcontroller anyway.

      Anyone remember the old Philips EE kits? I saved up for the EE 2003 when I was 8 or so (and the rest is history). This was a nice range of kits that fit together to build bigger projects up to and including a TV and an oscilloscope as well as digital circuits. Along the way it gave a pretty solid grounding in the characteristics and even theory of semiconductors, explained on a level for people without degrees in mathematics or physics. Which was definitely the point: Philips was hoping to train and entice potential EEs into the field.

      If you want to sell a modern kit to learn electronics with a microcontroller, do include these basics as well. They are relevant: if you're interfacing stuff to your Arduino, you'll need to know something about basic circuitry like motor drivers and amplifiers, and concepts like PWM, or knowing how a transistor works and what it can do. They did include the necessary components for all this in the Duinokit, but I am hoping that they are also supplying good quality learning materials to go with it.

      --
      If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
    13. Re:No... by RavenLrD20k · · Score: 1

      There's nothing wrong with the high level stuff, reusable libraries, cut and paste from stack exchange, etc when you have deadlines on deliverables and just want to use programming as an income. If you want to actually learn and understand the underlying science of what you're doing, be it Computer Science, Electronics Science, or some blending between the two, there really is no substitute for the "bare metal" from scratch building. I agree that the "stop calling it programming" part is a disservice, because the high level quick stuff is still programming, by its very definition... but it's no where near the level of learning and understanding that comes from the core low level concepts.

    14. Re:No... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Some people are expanding on these kits with their own microcontroller modules.
      I just discovered this this weekend when reading about the old EE kits.

      http://www.picaxeforum.co.uk/showthread.php?9236-Picaxe-based-Satellite-PongSat-18X/

      There was another thread somewhere, but I can't find it anymore.

      Maybe it's time to revive the kits? It could be a nice Arduino alternative.
      Won't happen soon I guess

    15. Re:No... by laurencetux · · Score: 1

      and besides if you really want to study electronics then RadioShack has everything you need including the Forrest Mims set of books. http://www.forrestmims.com/

      Wait to get this thing until after you know which way to put a polarized cap in a circuit and you can hold a soldering iron by the correct end.

      Fun Fact the Mims project books were all HAND DRAWN by Mims himself (and then photocopied)

    16. Re:No... by rgriff59 · · Score: 2

      Of course it doesn't teach you electronics. An entire TV set as a bag of parts and a soldering iron won't teach you either. However, both can be beneficial resources to have while you learn electronics.

      The arduino boards don't do much of anything useful until you start connecting them to other things. Those other things are electronic components. I'm not convinced the duinokit is an improvement over a solderless breadboard and some loose components, but the whole arduino ecosystem is a very positive development.

      The age of discrete electronics is gone. Electronics has become little digital chips with magic inside, with only the bare minimum of connections to discrete parts outside to make it all work. Hmmmm, sounds a lot like an arduino, except you can control the magic inside the chip.

      The arduino kits are the best thinker's toy I've found in a Radio Shack in more than a decade.

    17. Re:No... by drakaan · · Score: 1

      Radio shack still sells stuff like this, apparently (at least they do online).

      --
      "Murphy was an optimist" - O'Toole's commentary on Murphy's Law
  2. Slashdotted.. by Archwyrm · · Score: 3, Informative

    Good job, guys. You broke it. At least I was able to load one page before the DB rolled over and died.

    Google Cache

    --
    Fascism should more properly be called corporatism because it is the merger of state and corporate power. -- Mussolini
    1. Re:Slashdotted.. by halivar · · Score: 4, Funny

      That's what you get for self-hosting on a DuinoKit.

  3. Speaking of Radio Shack by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I seriously wonder why RS hasn't embraced the maker culture. It seems to me that they can only last another year trying to compete in consumer products and batteries.

    1. Re:Speaking of Radio Shack by BitZtream · · Score: 2

      ... I buy arduino stuff from RadioShack all the time, they stock a variety of shields and arduino units. Generally handy when I burn up a board and don't want to wait for a mail order replacement.

      A far amount of generic basic components as well. Of course they never have the power FETs or triacs I want, but not that many people are trying to build custom ECUs or high powered light controllers either

      --
      Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
    2. Re:Speaking of Radio Shack by PvtVoid · · Score: 3, Insightful

      This article sums it up pretty well.

      Everybody likes to blame the decline of bricks-and-mortar retail on the internet, and that may have some truth to it, but I think that a pretty substantial part of the problem is the influence of douchebag MBAs who have turned companies like Radio Shack, Sears, Office Depot, Best Buy, etc. etc. into dystopian hellholes of despair and horror. Try shopping at Sears in the last few years? The fear and desperation are palpable. I can understand in the current economy why the employees might not quit en masse, but why on earth would any customer voluntarily subject themselves to that?

    3. Re:Speaking of Radio Shack by Darinbob · · Score: 2

      Because it stopped being an electronics store a very long time ago. Now it sells phones, batteries, and consumer goods. Though a few rare die hard stores will still sell a few components.

    4. Re:Speaking of Radio Shack by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "You've got questions. We've got blank stares."

    5. Re:Speaking of Radio Shack by smellsofbikes · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I seriously wonder why RS hasn't embraced the maker culture. It seems to me that they can only last another year trying to compete in consumer products and batteries.

      Do you remember TechAmerica, RadioShack's last attempt to embrace the maker culture, in 1996? They opened five stores in major metro areas.
      They were wonderful. I could go in and decide which 10-bit A/D I preferred. The guy behind the counter knew what a 74141 was.
      They lasted five years. Over the three year lifetime of the Denver store, the electronics section got smaller, the toys and gadget section got larger, and they still didn't manage to make their rent.

      After that, is it any surprise that their current maker section consists of half a dozen arduino boards and shields and a shelf of TH resistors in the back? How do you compete with Digikey, if you have to pay rent?

      --
      Nostalgia's not what it used to be.
    6. Re:Speaking of Radio Shack by DigitAl56K · · Score: 3, Insightful

      "You've got questions. We've got phone plans."

      FTFY

    7. Re:Speaking of Radio Shack by preaction · · Score: 1

      It's because, turns out, the real estate the company bought is a more stable stream of income than the retail company itself. The company ebbs and flows at a rate related to the human attention span, but the world is not going to be getting bigger any time soon...

    8. Re:Speaking of Radio Shack by __aaclcg7560 · · Score: 1

      As we say in Silicon Valley, "It's not your granddaddy's Radio Shack anymore."

    9. Re:Speaking of Radio Shack by grumling · · Score: 1

      Yep, they bet that they’d become the 3rd party cell phone king. They forgot that in the US, the carrier is happy to extend credit for the handsets.

      Bad bet, but hey, it happens. At the time, the other side of the bet was to start selling homebrew PC components, and look where CompUSA is now...

      --
      "Well, good luck finding a judge that doesn't run a bestiality site."
    10. Re:Speaking of Radio Shack by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Tell that to all those real estate moguls that were holding onto land in detroit before 1970. Want to buy a home for $1?

    11. Re:Speaking of Radio Shack by tlhIngan · · Score: 4, Insightful

      It's because, turns out, the real estate the company bought is a more stable stream of income than the retail company itself. The company ebbs and flows at a rate related to the human attention span, but the world is not going to be getting bigger any time soon...

      Actually that was sort of the plan of the Best Buy co-founder wanted to embrace before the current Best Buy board denied his purchase offer for the company.

      He wanted to embrace showrooming - it already happens now, so why not actually support it, encourage it, and turn best buy from a store selling stuff into a showroom selling stuff.

      And it makes a lot of sense - people still want to touch and feel products, but other than Apple, Microsoft and Samsung, most manufacturers are not able to maintain a network of stores to sell stuff through. Enter Best Buy who will lease you out a space for your product so people can come by and touch, feel, play and if you can keep them in stock, buy off the shelf. If not, Best Buy will gladly help you order it online.

      Of course there has to be a sundry list of items they regularly stock, but that is minor - the goal is to be a showroom where you may be able to buy stuff, but more so you can come and see and feel the product. In other words, the customer is not the guy walking in the door, it's the manufacturers of the products inside, and I'm sure with partnerships with Amazon and other fulfilment companies, they can get special offers like ship it to the store for free and the like.

      It already is like that for the big players - when you see the PS4 and Xbone aisles - know Sony and Microsoft actually pay Best Buy for the entire aisle. Those product displays? Yes, purchased space. Notice how the Apple area has different (often nicer) carpeting? Yes, Apple paid for that area, AND the renovations to get it to be like that.

      Basically, the goal is to fill the niche that online shopping cannot fill - the ability to see the product.

    12. Re:Speaking of Radio Shack by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      RadioShack's German cousin, Conrad, has taken huge steps to embrace the maker and hardware startup culture. Of course, since they never sucked nearly as hard as The Shack, it's not a surprise that they're actually doing quite well.

  4. never heard of the RadioShack kit by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    and I've been a geek for over 30 years. I'm floored, really.

    1. Re:never heard of the RadioShack kit by preaction · · Score: 1

      I would've killed someone for that thing when I was 7. And I'm only 30 years old.

    2. Re:never heard of the RadioShack kit by 50000BTU_barbecue · · Score: 1

      Maybe you didn't grow up in the West? Radio Shack was all over the place here in Montreal when I was a kid. It must have been all over North America as well.

      --
      Mostly random stuff.
    3. Re:never heard of the RadioShack kit by byuu · · Score: 1

      It's dreadful. Seriously.

      I bought it. Lesson 1 was, "here's how you light up an LED! Connect the LED, a resistor, and the power source!"

      So I think, great! I've got this. Okay, what's next? Lesson 2, "build this IR transmitter that communicates with your personal computer" ... fffffffffffffffffuuuu~

      (not exactly that, been a while so I don't recall the specifics, but it was about that bad. It's the art instruction equivalent of this.)

    4. Re:never heard of the RadioShack kit by YuppieScum · · Score: 1

      FWIW, in the UK the chain was named Tandy.

      --
      This sig left unintentionally blank.
    5. Re:never heard of the RadioShack kit by demonlapin · · Score: 1

      Don't give it too much credit. The circuit book was a bunch of wiring diagrams (connect pin 30 to pin 57) with schematics of the finished product, but it didn't actually explain what you were doing, why it worked, or why it was important. Decades later, I realized that it was actually capable of creating some pretty cool stuff (recognized the names of circuits), but by then it was long gone.

    6. Re:never heard of the RadioShack kit by JaredOfEuropa · · Score: 1

      The old Philips EE kits were much better and provided a lot of theoretical background in understandable language along with each project. A lot of the projects were geared to demonstrate what things like transistors or capacitors actually do. Check out the book for this kit; it's in Dutch but you'll get the idea.

      --
      If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
    7. Re:never heard of the RadioShack kit by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I had something like that when I was 10. This was in the 70s. It was very similar to the RS kits, but I don't know where it actually came from. I got it in Europe. It was great fun. You could make radios, noise generators, that sort of thing. It included one very simple IC chip, but otherwise was mostly discrete components. You did learn a bit about what those things did, how they worked. I've looked for years for something like it to get for my cousins' kids, but the stuff I see in the toy stores now seem less useful.

  5. Electricity versus electronics by Okian+Warrior · · Score: 1

    That's not electronics either. Electronics is about physics, you'd like to play with a vacuum tube to actually see a hot cathode and measure currents.

    Everything descends from [the physics concept] power.

    Electricity is moving power from place to place (using electrons, to distinguish it from steam engines, plumbing &c).

    Electronics is adding power to signal (again, using electrons to distinguish it from other forms such as hydraulics and pneumatcs).

    Calculating the maximum load on your 15 amp circuit is electricity. Most of the wiring in your house is electricity, because it's concerned with moving power from place to place.

    Amplifying an audio signal to put through a speaker is electronics. Amplifying a sensor to be read by a micro is electronics. You're adding power to the signal for various purposes.

    1. Re:Electricity versus electronics by fustakrakich · · Score: 1

      Most of the wiring in my house is copper. Everything is electricity.... or is it magnetism... gravity?

      --
      “He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
    2. Re:Electricity versus electronics by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      You made that all up. A relay has gain, so does a power switch. And electronics *DO NOT* _ADD_ power, they merely control the power supply!

      How about a carbon microphone connected directly to a transmitter? The carbon particles react to sound pressure and control the power of the RF transmitter.... Electricity, or electronics?

      How about a Branly coherer? Is that electricity or electronics?

      How about a saturable core reactor? Electricity, or electronics?

      How about a Hewittic merucry arc rectifier? A triggered spark gap?

  6. What is bad about soldering??? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    It is a nearly essential skill, and loads of fun to do. Any one in the Maker/Ham community can do it.l

    1. Re:What is bad about soldering??? by sjames · · Score: 1

      You have to be old enough to be trusted with a soldering iron. Next up, we live in exactly the sort of sue crazy society that would turn a small solder burn into a grave injury (for legal purposes).

      Even adult makers often breadboard before they solder.

  7. Hey by Kohath · · Score: 4, Funny

    DuinoKit until you try it

  8. Big problem by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    This thing has its components protected so you cannot let the smoke out!

  9. Plug in or batteries? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I cannot see the video. Does this thing require batteries or can you plug it in?

  10. Cool product. Seems like a really nice guy. by maitas · · Score: 1

    Not only the product looks great. He really seems like a nice guy. I wish him the best.

    1. Re:Cool product. Seems like a really nice guy. by maitas · · Score: 1

      PD: I really wonder if he makes money out of those. All the parts it have and the time it takes him to create it I really doubt he actually earns much money at all...

    2. Re:Cool product. Seems like a really nice guy. by ArcadeMan · · Score: 1

      Go check out the price of Arduinos and shields on eBay. I just bought a complete Pro mini for around 2.50$ but if I only want the IC from digi-key.ca it's going to cost me around 4.50$.

      --
      Get free satoshi (Bitcoin) and Dogecoins
  11. Not a nerd, really? by twitnutttt · · Score: 1

    And for those of you who worry about being called nerds because you're carrying a DuinoKit around, you can relax. It comes in a 'Secret Agent Carrying Case.' Really.

    Because nothing says, "I'm not a nerd," like toting a Secret Agent Carrying Case.

  12. Rules and information by Okian+Warrior · · Score: 1

    You made that all up.

    I observed, noticed a trend, and came to a conclusion. You should try it some time.

    Minor exceptions don't make a rule less useful. Check out Newton's Laws sometime.

    A rule is useful to the degree that it conveys [read: compresses] information. We teach that the world is round because as a rule that statement is pretty accurate, and only later do we admit that it's an oblate spheroid or use other, more accurate representations.

    I can't say "leaves are green" without some idiot on the internet pointing out that Poinsettia leaves are red.

    So I have to say "tree leaves are green" until some idiot on the internet points out that Chinese maple tree leaves are red.

    So I have to say "most tree leaves are green" at which point some idiot on the internet points out that tree leaves change color in the fall.

    So I have to say "most tree leaves are green most of the time..." and the statement is mushy and filled with weasel words.

    Newton's laws compress the almanac of cannon ball weights, forces, angles, and the subsequent arc of travel into a half page of information. That's pretty good compression for a rule, even though there are exceptions.

    Saying "electronics is adding power to signal" is also a pretty good rule, except for obscure corner cases that don't matter in everyday experience.

    Branly converter? Do I *really* have to worry about Branley converters in my electronics lectures?

    Leaves are green. Get over yourself.

    1. Re:Rules and information by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You are assuming that what you observe and what you conclude is the same as what someone else would observe and conclude.

      That's monumentally egocentric.

      I observed something completely different and came to different conclusions, yet I'm pretty sure we could both wire up a lightbulb in the home.

      The only difference is I'm right, you are not. (See how that looks?)

    2. Re:Rules and information by SylvesterTheCat · · Score: 1

      Leaves are green. Get over yourself.

      Damn. I did have points a couple of days ago.
      I guess I will have to settle for "well stated."

  13. My cat has tapeworms by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Arduino is gay. Ooh aah I have a SHIELD i just made magic happen. I just hahaha

  14. Nice kit by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    But as someone who has been interested in microprocessors since 1975 (and I've explored the Arduino also) I'd say you should only teach them in a very focused course that leads to using them in an engineering sense for real world control of devices. Otherwise it is very easy to fall into a black hole of learning that goes nowhere.but blinky lights and useless toy servo control. And as several slashdotters have pointed out, this is not really "electronics." It is embedded system control and it is way, way ahead of itself. And it has been done over and over again. I've seen them for the 8085.

  15. Oblig XKCD by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    https://xkcd.com/435/