Back in the 60s magazines were the starting point. So I made crystal sets etc from parts I could get in surplus shops. I think now the magazine of choice would be "Make" (group please add to this). As to kits, the choice is almost too wide. I won, and then gave away, a technical Lego kit which included a progammable controller. That looked good. However, one of the best kits I ever had was hand-picked by a friend of my Dad. I think I would do this, probably based on Arduino or the Pycom stuff with some sensors/actuators and links to pages that would allow someone to make their own. It pains me to suggest starting with micropython rather than javascript or C but I think that's probably the right thing to do.
Paul
On 28/09/2018 09:25, Jeremy Bennett wrote:
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Hi all,
@here When I was young I learned a lot from "The Boys Book of Crystal Sets" (https://www.americanradiohistory.com/Archive-Bookshelf/Technology/Boys-Book-...) and the Ladybird book "Making a Transistor Radio" (https://archive.org/details/MakingATransistorRadio-LadybirdBook/page/n0).
These are largely unusable today, primarily because you cannot get 500pF air spaced variable capacitors (they come up second hand on eBay sometimes at a price, but with little guarantee about actual capacitance values). Plus they are dependent on germanium technology, although that is accessible at least for the diodes.
I have a 10 year old nephew who is very keen on electronics. I'd like to introduce him to the same sort of projects. Any suggestions what the modern equivalent would be?
Thanks,
Jeremy
Tel: +44 (1590) 610184 Cell: +44 (7970) 676050 SkypeID: jeremybennett Twitter: @jeremypbennett Email: jeremy.bennett@embecosm.com Web: www.embecosm.com PGP key: 1024D/BEF58172FB4754E1 2009-03-20 -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
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