Electronic circuit kit suggestions for children

[Prawo Jazdy]

Hello,

My child has a birthday soon and has taken an interest in circuits. I have a DK book from the early 90’s that they have started looking at since doing some experimenting/playing with basic circuits at school.

Does anyone have any suggestions for nice quality kits that build on this? Things like bulbs, motors, buzzers or other sound transducers, would be good, but if it can include some other components like resistors, diodes, transistors, logic gates etc that might be a plus.

They’re turning nine, so that’s a level I’m looking at, plus a couple of years. I’ve looked in the usual places, but a lot of it appears to be mainly fancy packaging and lots of cheap plastic that will be stop being interesting quickly and then spend several thousand years in landfill. Any suggestions for better quality, longer life options? I’ve got an Arduino starter kit that I used for a project, so that’s available for when they’re a bit older or understand a bit more.

Thanks

[aust240378]

My son had a great time with this:-

https://www.argos.co.uk/product/9368334?utm_custom...

The creator is passionate about it and you can get any missing parts individually.

[Zad]

Something like this? https://www.amazon.co.uk/Project-Starter-Tutorial-...

[RacingStripes]

This is what I had as a kid/still have in the loft.

https://ebay.us/m/Up1Pry

[Prawo Jazdy]

Thanks for the suggestions. The Arduino kit I mentioned is that exact Elegoo kit, so I’ll start with something more basic. Plus I can’t give something, from which I’ve already scavenged components, as a gift

[RacingStripes]

Another option is a Nixie Clock kit. Interesting to build and have a function at the end.

[mike9009]

aust240378 said:

My son had a great time with this:-

https://www.argos.co.uk/product/9368334?utm_custom...

The creator is passionate about it and you can get any missing parts individually.

We had that too. Kids enjoyed it for a little while, but once each circuit has been built the novelty somewhat wore off...but certainly provided many hours of entertainment.

They migrated onto the BBC micro:bit.

https://microbit.org/

I cannot find the exact Alien kit they had....but the coding element seemed to suit my kids more than the circuit design.... It certainly kept them 'self' entertained for a long time.....

I suppose it depends how they are wired up......

[geeks]

For those who like to tinker.. https://thepihut.com/products/maker-advent-calenda...

[oobie38]

We had the John Adams kit about 15 years back- had to write to the manufacturers to get the one of circuits corrected in the instruction book- they replied with a printed pdf detailing the corrected circuit- very odd.

[Beati Dogu]

They definitely make a good present for a kid. My parents gave me an electronics kit for my 11th birthday. I can't remember the name of it, but it came with a breadboard like this one:



It's called a "S-Dec". S for Solderless I expect. I've long since lost the parts, but still have the book that came with it. "Adventures With Electronics" by Tom Duncan. I used it to make various types of radio, timers, a fire alarm etc. All good stuff and a nice introduction to what all the components do. I've since learnt to solder and still mess around with simple kits and various 8 bit computers from the 80s. Spectrum, Commodore 64, Atari 800, Acorn Electron, Oric Atmos, Amstrad CPC6128.

There's loads of solderless kits you can get from the likes of Amazon or PiHut