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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Hash: SHA1

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-Of-Crystal-Sets.pdf)
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

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