Radio Shack: Electronic Kits

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Anyone ever like those so-called 50 in 1, 100 in 1 or 150 in 1 electronic kits they used to sell at Radio Shack where you could put together these simple circuits on a circuit board? I remember these back around Jr. High or so. I had an interest in electronics and electricity(especially static electricity generators: I still do). They still sell these kinds of kits and I may like to get one of those again

I purchased one a couple of years ago for my daughter and me to play with.
It's the Electronics Learning Lab from Radio Shack.

We only pull it out on a rare occasion now, but we did work through some of the projects together.

Part of what I like about these things is that not only do they actually teach electronics, they also allow a kid (or adult) to see that anyone can make things that most folks wouldn't think they could.

I think that being able to put together an electronics project takes a little of the mystery out of the appliances that surround us in our everyday life.

... or perhaps not?

I had the 200 in 1. I got it as a kid and there was much doubt as to if I would make use of it.

How I got it was a bit of a story. My grandfather found a power take off shaft along a road. Its a piece of farm equipment. My mom ran a one person post office. I drew a little poster of the item and listed my grandfathers number to be called if someone was missing one. Well, someone did, and he got a reward of 50 dollars, which he passed to me.

The electronics kit was the largest size, and it cost a bit more than that 50 dollars. I think it was 80 to 100 dollars, and I had to beg my mom to get that extra money. It also wasnt bought locally. As I said, there was some doubt as to my making use of it, but I certainly did! It was one of the greatest toys I ever received.

I agree with wsmac's point, "they also allow a kid (or adult) to see that anyone can make things that most folks wouldn't think they could." Wiring up something with individual parts and getting something going a bit helps point up the fact that electronic things are just wired up bits of simple parts and that fact alone might inspire some additional investigations with other testbooks in hand or just experimentation through play to "see what happens."

The old Heathkit kits, together with their DC and AC and a couple of follow-on teaching series books, were also good for learning things. Heathkit, in that sense, is essentially no more, though.

Jon

Yeah I had one of those when I was a kid. I fried the transistor after about an hour, and that was the last time my dad bought one of those.

silver meteor...

our interests resonate

i got electronics kits but was a little more on the creative side and so didn't play with them a lot. some.

now i am taking some electronics classes, and it is turning out to be really fun. in the labs i feel like i am playing with toys. except people are supposed to get paid to do it...

and yet i am considering accounting in college because it would pay more.

If you can manage it, do what you like in life as your profession and not what you imagine today pays you better. I think you will be glad you did.

Jon

(10 more minutes till bank time 0.0)

well i'm looking for a solder tool thing and a bundle of wires, crocodile clips and other components and it's not that i'm good at electronics but that's what we're doing in class and it's very interesting so far sooooo does anyone know where to purchase a kit of stuff like that?

Darling, there are intermediate solutions between the childrens electronic kits and actual etched and soldered boards.



You simply push the component ends in and then they are bridged underneath by short metal strips. The double holes on the sides are also separately bridged so that you can attach power leads there.

You should be able to get electronics supplies from Maplins if you live in the UK. At least at one point you could.. Ebay would be a good place too.

Sometimes it is possible to find a universal boards for assembling the "beta versions" of devices. Of course, it needs soldering skills but not etching. I never had special "electronic kit", just such type of board, some radiodetails and pieces of old devices and some set of chemicals (solder, rosin, ethanol).

It not very hard to etch a board at home - I used varnish for nails and mixture of copper suplate and salt (or FeCl3 instead of it).

I had the 100 in 1 kit and put together a few things with it. Actually for someone wanting to learn electronics, its not that bad of an idea. Many years ago when I was in the 8th grade or so, we installed some linoleum tile in the house and I found out when rubbing it against my hair it was like an electrophorus. You could do some neat experiments with it.

Another thing I imagined was having a radio that could pick up all the known frequencies on the EMS. I liked seeing if I could get the police calls.

Yeah I had these as a kid, my dad bought me the 30 in 1 and then the 100 in 1.

My fav was the cystal radio though. Not battery power! When I couldnt get to sleep, I used to stand by the window staring at the stars and listening to those radio stations no one used to listen.

I couldn't afford to buy much when I built my first crystal radio. I used a piece of galena that I got for free as a waste piece of a collector's specimen and got some lead (people literally used 5 lb blocks of these for door stops) which I melted with a propane torch and imbedded the galena in that. The radio was built on a spare block of wood and I used a screw to fasten the lead+galena to it (lead is soft and screws can go into it.) A sewing needle was added to make the 'cat's whisker' that made a diode out of the galena. I wound the coils with magnet wire (scavenged from old relays I got from a bowling alley that was trashed when a small tornado hit it, by permision of the owner) on cardboard tubes (also free.) The capacitor was built with a sheet of glass (broken and free) and used aluminum foil sheets I got from the kitchen supply used in cooking. (The coil was the variable part of this.) Etc. You get the idea. The only thing I bought was the high impedance earpiece, because I had tried to make my own from permanent magnet material and my magnet wire and small metal pieces as diaphrams, but I couldn't get much of that working. That radio worked great, though. At least, to my ears. Mostly got local stations but we had one of them that played old time radio almost all day long, so I listened to everything from Lum and Abner to Lights Out (syndicated later, I think, as The Devil and Mr. O.) I would hook my antenna wire to the curtain rod and listen, while in bed at night.

Jon

Radio Shack also sells an excellent computer repair kit that has all the screwdrivers, etc you would ever need.

I have a Radio Shack soldering tool, it's really nice and easy to use, especially compared to my soldering gun (a 1950s model Weller).

Can't make a call on the kits, I've never gotten one, but Radio Shack's individual parts have never let me down.

Good luck finding a Radio Shack these days. They've shut down over half the ones in my area.

We don't have Radio Shack in canada anymore, they changed over to Circuit City, not the big ones they have in the States, they still have those electronics kits, also saw a crystal radio kit that I may buy, they also have some mechano sets that look like alot of fun

I have the 300-in-1 kit that they sell now, which teaches how to work with a bread board. In my area they no longer sell the smaller kits. I've found a 500-in-1 kit which sounds good here: http://www.ramseyelectronics.com/cgi-bi ... &key=PL500

However, I'd recommend learning how to solder as well which these kits don't teach.

Electronics encouraged me to do well in learning algebra when I was a teenager, which has really paid off in my chemistry and physics courses. I don't see it as an end unto itself anymore, perhaps though as a neat side hobby.