Electronics Projects for 12-Year-Olds? 104
nepheles asks: "I've recently been asked to teach some electronics classes for a group of 12-year-olds. They're all new to it. Electronics always seemed boring in school, so for them, I've been looking at hands-on projects: I've considered making basic motors, steady-hand games, and Morse-code communication systems. What experiments have you seen in electronics that amazed you, and that could be recreated in the classroom? What cool things have you made that would be simple enough for a kid to do? At a meta level, how would you like to have been taught electronics?"
Fun for the Whole Family (Score:3, Funny)
Two Words (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Your sig (Score:1)
Re:Two Words (Score:2)
Nah, the cops in Miami tend to win at that one. [techimo.com]
Some ideas (Score:3, Interesting)
A light sensor based levitation, again, similar idea.
The idea is to make something cool in the end without having to know a whole lot upfront.
Re:Some ideas (Score:1)
Teaching 12 year old kids to build weapons is a great idea. While a nailgun isn't dangerous on its own, you can always count on some dumb kid to shoot one of his classmates, either by accident or on purpose.
Re:Some ideas (Score:2)
Re:Some ideas (Score:2)
Hwat about Legomindstorms and build lego sumobots.
AM Radio (Score:5, Informative)
think like a kid (Score:3, Informative)
http://www.ramseyelectronics.com
A.
Think like a parent (Score:2)
Noisy projects may be more interesting to the kids, but they can sure as heck be annoying to everyone esle.
go for the basics (Score:2, Interesting)
Go into electronic stores, they can have lots of simple kits that would be apropriate.
You could get some magazines for idea's, i occasionally look at them, and every once in a while there are some good basic projects for children.
Re:go for the basics (Score:2)
However, the electronic kits from stores are good, I get one occasionally, but slightly more advanced than one for 12 year olds.
Bear in mind that most of the people in my electronics class (yr 9, did it in yr 8 too) can't solder for shit. Maybe this is not the norm, but don't expect 12-year-olds to be able to solder without making a horrifying mess of their PCB.
Most teachers don't seem to know shit, but they have most of the basic st
How long have they been soldering? (Score:2)
Re:How long have they been soldering? (Score:2)
Last year, we got 90 minutes a week, for one term, to learn to solder, basic theory, and other stuff like that. I was the only person in my class who already knew.
This year I had more like 4 hours a week, which makes things slightly better, but there was still the contant sound of a desolder station in the background. And some of the PCBs I saw were horrifying.
You also need to remember that the teachers don
how about a general kit? (Score:1, Interesting)
what about something like that, where a "generic" box of parts can be reused for several experiments? you would end up getting a bit more mileage out of your materials, cheaper on costs, and it would tend to keep the experiments simpler yet still pretty neat.
off topic, i just got a survey popup as i was submitting this. slashdot venturing out?
Re:how about a general kit? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:how about a general kit? (Score:2)
Actually, I would love to find the manual for my 50-in-one kit. I remember it talking about "biasing the transistor" and stuff like that. It was beyond me at the time. The later kits didn't explain how the circuits work.
These still exist (Score:5, Informative)
burglar alarms, animatronics (Score:2, Interesting)
Also, any simple animatronics -- a santa clause that waves when you get close, or a garbage can that has the lid open and a hand slides out -- will also catch them.
Have You Considered... (Score:4, Interesting)
Dangerous (Score:1)
Today students, we will demonstrate this giant Tesla coil which was built during the previous semester...
Now for everybody who got an "F" in effort in the previous semester, please place these metal chains around your neck and stand near the coil here...
Re:Dangerous (Score:1)
Take an oscilloscope.... (Score:5, Insightful)
However basic electronics is the stuff that 12yo kids get - show them the foundations...
The wire-wound rheostat.
The two-pencil carbon arc.
Heating nichrome wire to make a poor filament.
Build a battery in a beaker.
Hand-wind a motor and build it on plywood with
wire.
Electromagnet locking to a piece of metal.
Morse key, with a solenoid recording the results.
You want to show them something so that the building block *stays* in their mind....
If the idea is simple enough, it stays with them forever.
GrpA
Re:Take an oscilloscope.... (Score:3, Informative)
You could then attach wires to the coins and wrap them around an iron bar to make a magnet, and pick up iron filings. Not bad for turning familiar, extremely easy to find materials into a primitive but working
Re:Take an oscilloscope.... (Score:2, Informative)
Unless the metal composition of U.S. coins has changed since the early 80s. you can get a voltage off of a penny and a nickel (i.e., 1 cent and 5 cent pieces) separated by a saliva-soaked piece of paper. Great fun.
Re:Take an oscilloscope.... (Score:3, Informative)
Unless the metal composition of U.S. coins has changed since the early 80s...
Not to pick a nit, and not that it'd change the coin battery setup, but the metal composition of the 1 cent piece has changed since mid-1982.
From the US Treasury Website [treas.gov] (emphasis mine):
Re:Take an oscilloscope.... (Score:2)
PS - Pre-change coins sound different than post-change coins when dropped on a hard surface such as a wooden table. The old coins 'ring', the new coins 'thud'.
I never tried the pencils (Score:1)
Re:Take an oscilloscope.... (Score:2, Interesting)
I'm not so sure about some of the projects in the parent - in my experience of teaching kids the best way to teach them is to engauge their enthusiasm. To do that you need high-impact, exciting projects that also demonstrate the principles behind them.
What's interesting about a rheostat? Or a battery in a beaker? Sure, I find the idea of building a battery interesting, but that's because I (A-level Chemistry) know and understand the principles behind it, and seeing them in action is what makes it fun.
My first project.. (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:My first project.. (Score:1)
Re:My first project.. (Score:1)
Re:My first project.. (Score:2)
Before we could take them home, they had to have an empty canister glued into the hole, so we couldn't put a new one in.
That I was able to get the empty one out (and help some friends do it) the day we got them back (relief teacher, which meant
Persistance of Vision (Score:4, Interesting)
Keep them current (Score:4, Insightful)
Take a similar approach. Provide some basic understanding of the transistor, but don't make a circuit that simply blinks. Instead set them up about 10 years behind the curve rather than 20: throw together a small microcontroller board and a breadboard with some components. Maybe just give them a bare microcontroller to insert into the board.
Start with a few basic circuits, light an LED, amplify a light or sound source, make a touch sensor. Then get them to write a small program for the microcontroller, to blink a light. After that, try something a little more interactive like a who-pressed-the-button-first game.
A mess of transistors and wires isn't inspiring, and most of the kids won't have any idea how to come up with useful circuits on their own. But when they realize how much they can do with a microcontroller, watch their eyes light up. Well, maybe some of the geekier ones will. But use the microcontroller as the core, and introduce analog concepts as they relate, for example doing R/C calculations for a smooth PWM signal.
A single programmable component can often replace or exceed the function of dozens of discrete components. That's where things are heading these days, though analog designers are still needed. I just think you should introduce some technology of our generation so they won't blow off electronics as a lot of work to get a result a thousand times less exciting than what their cell phone can do.
Keep it Visible/audible (Score:1)
Crystal Radio? (Score:1)
Disposable Cameras (Score:2, Insightful)
Experience is a harsh mistress (Score:2)
I'm serious here: Let him get zapped. The currents available from a circuit like that are pretty darned unlikely to inflict serious damage, but they'll taach a lesson that no amount of stern talking will ever do: Voltage can really hurt.
I am glad all of my early electronic playing was on vaccum
LED flashlight (Score:4, Interesting)
Simple interfacing projects (Score:3, Interesting)
I always thought yet another crystal radio, or running a motor or light bulb was kind of boring. Didn't hold my attention.
Also you might consider demonstrating how to hack off-the-shelf hardware... take things apart, how to tell what different components are and what they do, how to determine how a chip is mapped into memory, connect to a memory bus (think Mailstation, etc) to add new components...
Connect tools, scopes, analyzers, etc. to show what is happening in the circuit. Measure voltages and show how they match up with the specification for the part...
dude, were you not htinking? (Score:2, Interesting)
Electric Motor (Score:4, Interesting)
http://fly.hiwaay.net/~palmer/motor.html [hiwaay.net]
For "real" electronics, if you just want to make a easy and fun project, most kids are usually impressed by things that blink LEDs (like a scanner sequencer type circuit) or make noise (I would suggest sirens).
no specifics but (Score:4, Insightful)
Make loud noises
Give off heat or flames
Give of bright light
move on it's own
be capable of irritating your friends at lunch
So, overloading exploding LED capacitors are the answer!
so yeah, making your own motors would work, building a race car with a pair of small motors and a headlight with a wired remote to start/stop, homebuilt radio, a small generator to light a lightbulb, etc.
Lastly, be sure it's durable, cause they will be dropped and abused a lot on the way home to show mom and dad.
two words - dry ice (Score:1)
I hate to say it... (Score:4, Insightful)
I spent the next 4 years doing nothing but tinkering with my project kits. I made radios, motion detectors, calculators, wind generators... i wound up fixing TVs and walkman radios, and game consoles for friends.
i kept off the electronic project kits but i never did get a girlfriend until i was 18.
my lesson to you - stay away from electronics, and keep the kids away too. I mean it.
this is a true story, by the way. all too true. I still can't hear things like digital watches out of my left ear
Re:I hate to say it... (Score:1)
Course I'd trade all my pre 16 relationships for some electronics knowledge.
Re:I hate to say it... (Score:1)
Re:I hate to say it... (Score:1)
Good Project Site (Score:3, Interesting)
Bizarre Labs [bizarrelabs.com] has some great stuff. Lemon batteries, crystal radios, electro-magnets, leyden jars. Even plans for Tesla coils and radioactive cloud chambers are there.
This does beg the question: What are the basic principles that need to be covered. Here are some that I would imagine are important:
Magnetism
Electromagnetism
Basic Circuits and electron flow
Photon Simultaneity
... well maybe not that last one, success rates are still pretty low. You might have to build up to that with a few simple explanatory topics.
Well (Score:2, Interesting)
A nice, simple, and (if they dig hardcore math) easy circuit with a blinking light is an series RC circuit, with a light (also in series). Basically, it will flash on and off, at a rate dependant on the time constant of the circuit (=R*C). No need for soldering, and who doesn't like flashing things?
Re:Well (Score:2)
Tim
Re:Well (Score:2)
*mutters something about today's third-year electronics students, glad it's "systems" and not an actual electrical engineerin degree*
A "what not to do..." (Score:1)
hello operator (Score:2)
perhaps make two versions of one of them - one of raw components simply wired together and another of components on a circuit board
View from a recently learned point of view. (Score:3, Informative)
POPFIZZLESPARK
Took 15 minutes of hammering away with a chisel to get the screwdriver out, freshly melted to the contacts. The heat was so intense in that instant that the teachers forearms looked pretty sunburnt. As a matter of fact, many students swear they saw his skeleton light up and the one hot girl's shirt dissipate. One thing we all had in common, we were all thinking the same thing:
"I gotta try that on someone, I'M MAKING A TAZER!"
Times have changed. (Score:2)
But I think these days programming and electronics have collided in a big way. Gone are the days of analog(ue).
Perhaps make a fixed board with some digial inputs and outputs (with relays and power) and a programmable pic controller... and let them play with that. (some electric motors and speakers and (light) sensors.
Thus, just drop your kid off at the local radioshack and let things just happen.
Re:Times have changed. (Score:2)
I posit that we must always start with analog, then build logic on top of that. The World is an analog place. At some point, a computer needs to interact with the World to be useful.
Re:Times have changed. (Score:2)
Call it what you will...
Digital is 'cleaner' and more abstract than analogue. I found that analogue was messy and tempramental, and you needed more expensive components and equipment to work with it.
All that aside, yes, it may still be important, but it is not necessary to survive in this day and age.
You do not need to know much about analogue to be able to build some cool toys (robots, yay!).
Kids want to see results... I know I did. The only cool thing you can still do with analogue is radio
-
I can't believe.. (Score:3, Interesting)
Get some relays and such and teach them the basics of digital logic by building electromechanical logic gates. Infact, show them just the basics or how the relay works, etc. and try to get them to think about how to make it do what it needs to do. They're kids, they've got imagination out the wazoo, they can think of lots of neat things. And it gets them interested in how computers work, rather than just playing video games on the things.
Re:I can't believe.. (Score:2)
http://www.embedded.com/showArticle.jhtml;jsession id=Q4OT1EN155QXSQSNDBGCKHSCJUMEKJVN?articleID=5120 0678 [embedded.com]
Re:I can't believe.. (Score:2)
Because they are twelve years old.
-Colin [colingregorypalmer.net]
Re:I can't believe.. (Score:1)
Re:I can't believe.. (Score:2)
Just FYI, when I was nine I designed a one bit full adder after learning about basic logic gates from my dad.
TTFN
Re:I can't believe.. (Score:2)
Make it engaging (Score:2)
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=02/10/25/144 4 24 1&tid=137
Unless of course unless you want to use MAME with Robot Odyssey. As a side note, I think a game like that would be perfect if the graphics were updated to mesh w
Wow! Is this worhtwhile! (Score:2, Informative)
Check out LiveWires for an example (Score:2)
LiveWires link [livewires.org.uk]
Grab.
A simple dice? (Score:2, Interesting)
Back in school I took an "electronics" course that were really more of a "learn how to solder" course. A shop here in Denmark have a fairly large selection of pre-made kits that included the PCB and all the components needed. While these kits did little to teach us anything about how the components and systems work they did serve as a sort of basis for getting something assembled - far better than if it had been a purely theoretical course.
Some of the kits we used we
Amplifier, sound effects (Score:2)
Electronic Projects for Musicians by Craig Anderton,
which has some very basic looking projects like simple amplifiers, guitar fuzz boxes, ring modulator and such. Looked suitable for beginners (which is why I'm reading it, of course). It's 24 years old, though, but maybe you'll find something similar from this decade.
Kids love making noise, right?
DIY Electric Chair (Score:3, Funny)
This will give him a well-developed sense of Right and Wrong, Truth, Justice and the American Way(TM).
He'll grow up a God-fearing, Republican, join the Army or Police and will avoid all deviancy for the rest of his life.
Re:DIY Electric Chair (Score:1)
Police in Lithuania's second largest city Kaunas has found the body of a 74-year-old man, who committed suicide in an electric chair he made himself
http://www.iafrica.com/news/worldnews/392799.htm [iafrica.com]
Mr Swinson (Score:2, Informative)
On the electronics front, we built a robot that would follow a white line painted on the ground (by coupling two light sensitive cells to circuits that controlled the opposite motors), and a working (if a bit squealy) electronic organ.
Aside from electronics, he had children working with blow torches and lathes, constructing working steam engines that trundled along the floor from raw mate
Re:Mr Swinson (Score:1)
Although I am however intrigued by the more complex and modern stuff in physics, so it's not a complete loss and definite loss.
Elenco Snap Circuits (Score:1)
Scitoys (Score:2)
all kinds of little projects, some electronic, some otherwise. My son(13) is doing the Gauss Rifle [scitoys.com]. So as not to freak out the teacher, we're calling it a 'Linear Accelerator', instead of a railgun.
Boy Electrition (Score:2)
The Boy Electrician [lindsaybks.com] is the best place to start. Published in 1940, so the tubes are a little hard to find, but most of the projects don't use tubes. Everything is easy yet informative, and the book is aimed at boys so it is easy and fun to read. Recommended, even for adults.
P.S. That site has several other books that you will find interesting, but this is the best.
How long are the classes? (Score:2)
Assuming it spans multiple sessions (or maybe even if it doesn't), you'll want lots of stages to build up to. This may also be useful if you're unsure of how long things will take, as you may only be able to get to 5 stages, when you planned 7, but you don't have to tell the kids that.
I'd also advise against usin
The Beakman Motor (Score:2)
Digital circuits (Score:1)
Teach them how to program a simple microcontroler (like the PIC 16F84 or the 89S51)
It's pretty simple and very fun.
Then you can build "sophisticates stuff" like a IR remote control, a simple calculator, stuff like that...
In my day... (Score:2)
Materials:
1. Bleach
2. Baking Soda
3. Copper stranded wire
4. Aluminium Foil
5. Wax Paper or other nonconductive surface that will survive immersion in bleach
5. Glass container or old canning/jelly jar
6. LEDs or old fashioned screw in flashlight bulb with fixture (can you even find those anymore?)
7. Alligator clips
Instructions:
1. Take the foil and form a cup with a tail (sort of like a laddle) so that 1/3 of the bottom of the glass container is l
Electronic projects (Score:1)
Fun with LM3909 (Score:1)
An example circuit [compuserve.com] is on this page [compuserve.com].
Mount it in a matchbox, and you have your first electronics project! I think I still have that thing 20 years later.
Robotics competitions (Score:1)