[Elecraft] Suggestions for Introducing a 10-year-old to Amateur Radio and Electronics

[Bob Anderson]

Companies like Elenco still make the 150-in-1 and 300-in-1 Electronic
Project Labs that let you easily walk through theory and application with
quick results yet still allow you to do the builds and easily modify
circuits. Safely. They have the "Snap Circuits" line of kits for things
like building an FM radio receiver. These kits are very simple to build but
show a result quickly. The labs are better for minds that are ready to
experiment and tinker, but the targeted kits may be a better introduction.
There are also a lot of Arduino kits with different sensors, inputs,
outputs, lights, switches, etc. that can make some fun projects quickly if
there is any interest in programming.

https://www.amazon.com/Elenco-300-in-One-Electronic-Project-Lab/dp/B00005K86O
https://www.adafruit.com/product/170

Bob
N8ZVX


On Sun, Oct 15, 2017 at 12:44 PM, Mike Markowski <mike.ab3ap at gmail.com>
wrote:

> Ted,
>
> When my now-21 yr old son was about 14, he had by then earned his
> Technician and learned CW.  At that point he had an iPod and put an iambic
> keyer app on it.  He thought it would be fun to use as a key but I pointed
> out that that would be modulated CW and not actual CW.  Using his interest
> as an opportunity to teach some electronics, here's what we did:
>
> 1. Bought some equal valued resistors.  Then we could use series and
> parallel to get values needed.  A nice simple lesson there explaining why
> that is.
>
> 2. Bought a quad op amp chip.  This is harder to fully teach a kid, of
> course, but we wired up one as an inverting amplifier showing how the
> feedback resistor divided by the input resistor determines the scale factor.
>
> 3. We wired up another as a comparator using a potentiometer.
>
> 4. Used an NPN as a switch to key the rig.
>
> In the end, ipod (now, smart phone!) audio goes to the amplifier.
> Amp out goes to comparator whose output is triggered by cw audio in.
> Comparator output goes to NPN switch to key rig.
>
> And then you have the world's most high tech key.  :-)  We topped it off
> by having him solder together the circuit on perf board and mount it in, of
> course, an Altoids tin.  Maybe a mini project along these lines would work,
> tailored to suit his interests and age.
>
> Good luck!
> Mike ab3ap
>
>
>
>
> On 10/15/2017 11:46 AM, Dauer, Edward wrote:
>
>> Looking for suggestion about books or kits or whatever else that might
>> interest a ten year old to electronics and to amateur radio.  He is adept
>> at mechanical things and pretty bright.  What else could he be?  He’s my
>> grandson.
>>
>> But his understanding of electronics is well insulated by contemporary
>> smart phones and games and the like, about the innards of which one can
>> learn nothing in the old way – the way we did it, by taking the family
>> radio apart and then having to learn how to put it back together.
>>
>> Any other grandpas or grandmas out there have experiences to share?
>>
>> Thanks in advance,
>>
>> Ted, KN1CBR
>>
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