Ds 15 wants ‘ electronic gizmos’

[Sweetpony]

He’d like to solder/ join electric bits together to make gizmos. He’s not sure what or how. I guess in a different age he’d be wanting meccano. Is there something like this? He loves maths, computers, solving puzzles. Is nearly 16. Help!

Something with arduino? There's a website that sells lots of kits for it that look fun

Try www.maplin.co.uk (such a pity the physical stores aren't still around).

Has he done any electronics at all before?

Or lots of idea here, though not sure if any of them are likely to involve soldering.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/s?k=engineering+kits+for+teenagers&i=toys&crid=U14NMLA59H9S&sprefix=engineering+kits+for+teenagers%2Ctoys%2C226&ref=nbsbbssfbb3_30

This search may be more relevant (I've not looked at the details)

https://www.amazon.co.uk/s?k=Soldering+electronics+kits+for+teenagers&i=toys&crid=1930K9H7ONT6S&sprefix=soldering+electronics+kits+for+teenagers%2Ctoys%2C72&ref=nbsbb_noss

Thank you! Will have a mooch tomorrow. He said he’d like to invent something useful, but doesn’t know where to begin. ( neither do I!)
I think he’s done some basic stuff at school, I wish he went to a decent school where they entered competitions, built robots etc.

Raspberry pi?

I think maybe ? What do you actually do with them?
reading between the very thick lines, I think ds would like to invent something useful or design a robot.

'Inventing something useful' is difficult! ... thinking of something that's not already been done which can be designed and built by a 16 yo is a laudable ambition but may not be realistic.

Designing some sort of robot may be though. You probably need to get him to look more into what exactly he might want to do. The first reply mentioned arduino, I've had a Quick Look and found a site which has raspberry pi and arduino stuff

https://thepihut.com

lego also have robotics kits I think though they're probably expensive.

There's lots of possibilities depending on how much he knows, how much effort he wants to put in and how much you want to spend. At about this age, mine designed and built a simple robot from fairly basic components, no microcontroller, but she'd done gcse electronics and had some idea about circuit design. She's an electronics design engineer now.... this is a hobby which may take over!

(Don't know why autocorrect decided to capitalise Quick Look in that post like it's a Thing )

He needs to start off by taking things apart and back together again to see how they work

Buy a selection of very cheap secondhand items he have a go at.

Electronic items that is

Awwmirror my brother did that with his brand new, very expensive cassette recorder back in the day! Maybe I’ll give him my old printer for Christmas 😀

https://www.brickborrow.com/about-us
lends out Lego on a subscription basis! May be useful to someone?!

it has teachings kits errol that look good. Though I suspect DH won’t want to be borrowing.

Ah well if your brother is around maybe ask for his advice if you haven't already

Ah sadly no not around.

A basic electronic kit and a box full of cheap stuff from poundland to take apart and see how they work! My dd and ds loved doing this! something like this https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B074Z6J9K4/

I'm thinking of this for my tech mad 14 years old

https://thepihut.com/products/maker-advent-calendar-includes-raspberry-pi-pico-h

That looks like a pre-Christmas present!

Oh that looks brilliant. Will show it to DH who is the tech wizard, well more than I am. He got v keen on the pihut after I’d explained DS wants to solder a bunch of electronics together and make gizmos.
this looks great, and ds was asking about advent calendars tonight too. Thank you!

Ah yes, sorry! Other tech gizmos my son has/had

A flipper zero - https://flipperzero.one/

Bbc microbit - ( much younger when they had this) https://shop.pimoroni.com/products/bbc-micro-bit-go-starter-kit

Raspberry Pi - https://shop.pimoroni.com/

Anything from https://thepihut.com

Yes, it is a bit pre Xmas! Maybe he could start with this then ..I dunno. Build a cyborg.
thanks jelly all things like this are great. I’m so out if my knowledge base.

What does your son do with all these bits? Does he make stuff?
DH was considering a 3d printer, but ds said he wouldn’t know what to print.
now we are thinking maybe if he got into gizmos like the above then he might want to print stuff?
gah! I can understand crafts but I’m out in a limb here.
thank you sooooo much. Mn is amazing!

My son tinkers, does projects he finds online. To be fair, he is more into software than hardware so he prefers to tinker on the computer rather than robotics type stuff.

But there are so many robotic type kits you can buy that your son can use to learn how things work like the Pico calendar I linked to and then he can use that knowledge to build what he wants to.

Main thing for me is I give him access to a computer let him research via YouTube, Reddit etc to find what he is interested in and then support it but buying either gizmos or udemy courses.

Something like this for example - https://www.udemy.com/course/analog-electronics-robotics-learn-by-building/

Really depends on your son and his learning style. Some children learn well with courses like above ( just an example, im sure there are more). Others just want to learn a little bit and then freestyle.

The cool thing with the internet is you can do it how you like 🙂

For inspiration, example of projects my son has done

Built an app and put in on the apple app store.
Set up a Minecraft server that allows cross play between java and other editions.
Set up a raspberry Pi based smart home network that we can use to control our lights.
Set up a VPN using another Raspberry Pi.