Science Fair 150in1 Electronic Project Kit

ARDX - Arduino Experimentation Kit (Inside the box)

An electronic kit is a package of

electrical components An electronic component is any basic discrete device or physical entity in an electronic system used to affect electrons or their associated fields. Electronic components are mostly industrial products, available in a singular form and are no ...

used to build an

electronic Electronic may refer to: *Electronics, the science of how to control electric energy in semiconductor * ''Electronics'' (magazine), a defunct American trade journal *Electronic storage, the storage of data using an electronic device *Electronic co ...

device. Generally, kits are composed of electronic components, a circuit diagram (schematic), assembly instructions and often a

printed circuit board A printed circuit board (PCB; also printed wiring board or PWB) is a medium used in electrical and electronic engineering to connect electronic components to one another in a controlled manner. It takes the form of a laminated sandwich str ...

(PCB) or another type of prototyping board. There are two types of kit. Some build a single device or system. Other types used for education demonstrate a range of circuits. Theses will include a solderless construction board of some type, such as: * Components mounted in plastic blocks with side contacts, that are held together in a base, e.g. Denshi blocks * Springs on a card board, the springs trap wire leads or component leads, such as Philips EE electronic experiment kits. These are a cheap and flexible option * Professional type prototyping boards, (

breadboard A breadboard, solderless breadboard, or protoboard is a construction base used to build semi-permanent prototypes of electronic circuits. Unlike a perfboard or stripboard, breadboards do not require soldering or destruction of tracks and are h ...

s) into which component leads are inserted, following documentation of the "kit". The first type of kits, those for the construction of a single device, normally use a PCB on which components are soldered. They normally come with extended documentation describing which component goes where into the PCB. For advanced hobby projects, sometimes the kit may only consist of a printed circuit board and assembly instructions, and the purchaser may have to source all the parts independently; or, the vendor may provide hard-to-get or pre-programmed parts while expecting the purchaser to obtain the rest of the components. People primarily purchase electronic kits to have fun and learn how things work. They were once popular as a means to reduce the cost of buying goods, but there is usually no cost saving in buying a kit today. Some electronic kits were assembled to make complete complex devices such as color

television Television, sometimes shortened to TV, is a telecommunication medium for transmitting moving images and sound. The term can refer to a television set, or the medium of television transmission. Television is a mass medium for advertising, ...

sets,

oscilloscope An oscilloscope (informally a scope) is a type of electronic test instrument that graphically displays varying electrical voltages as a two-dimensional plot of one or more signals as a function of time. The main purposes are to display repetiti ...

s, high-end

audio amplifier An audio power amplifier (or power amp) is an electronic amplifier that amplifies low-power electronic audio signals, such as the signal from a radio receiver or an electric guitar pickup, to a level that is high enough for driving loudspea ...

amateur radio Amateur radio, also known as ham radio, is the use of the radio frequency spectrum for purposes of non-commercial exchange of messages, wireless experimentation, self-training, private recreation, radiosport, contesting, and emergency commu ...

equipment, electric organs,C. P. Gilmore, ''Suddenly Everybody's Soldering: Big Boom in Electronic Kits'', ''Popular Science'', February 1962 pp. 125ff and even computers such as the

Heathkit Heathkit is the brand name of kits and other electronic products produced and marketed by the Heath Company. The products over the decades have included electronic test equipment, high fidelity home audio equipment, television receivers, amateu ...

H-8, and the LNW-80. Many of the early

microprocessor A microprocessor is a computer processor where the data processing logic and control is included on a single integrated circuit, or a small number of integrated circuits. The microprocessor contains the arithmetic, logic, and control circ ...

computers were sold as either electronic kits or assembled and tested. Heathkit sold millions of electronic kits during its 45-year history. Home assembly of common consumer electronics items no longer provides a cost advantage over commercially manufactured and distributed devices. People still build kits for custom devices and special-purpose electronics for professional and educational use, and as a hobby. Also emerging is a trend to simplify the complexity by providing preprogrammed or modular kits and this is provided by many suppliers online often. The fun and thrill of making your own electronics has shifted in many cases from easy to comprehend application and analog devices to more sophisticated and digital devices. __NOTOC__

Examples

*The

Altair 8800 The Altair 8800 is a microcomputer designed in 1974 by MITS and based on the Intel 8080 CPU. Interest grew quickly after it was featured on the cover of the January 1975 issue of Popular Electronics and was sold by mail order through advertiseme ...

, (the first home computer), was also sold as a kit, as were the

MK14 The MK14 (Microcomputer Kit 14) was a computer kit sold by Science of Cambridge of the United Kingdom, first introduced in 1977 for £39.95. The price was very low for a complete computer system at the time, and Science of Cambridge eventually ...

, Sinclair ZX80,

Sinclair ZX81 The ZX81 is a home computer that was produced by Sinclair Research and manufactured in Dundee, Scotland, by Timex Corporation. It was launched in the United Kingdom in March 1981 as the successor to Sinclair's ZX80 and designed to be a low-co ...

and

Acorn Atom The Acorn Atom is a home computer made by Acorn Computers Ltd from 1980 to 1982, when it was replaced by the BBC Micro. The Micro began life as an upgrade to the Atom, originally known as the Proton. The Atom was a progression of the MOS Techn ...

computers. *Many

S-100 bus The S-100 bus or Altair bus, IEEE 696-1983 ''(withdrawn)'', is an early computer bus designed in 1974 as a part of the Altair 8800. The bus was the first industry standard expansion bus for the microcomputer industry. computers, consisting of p ...

system cards were sold only as kits. *Building a

Robot kit A robot kit is a special construction kit for building robots, especially autonomous mobile robots. Toy robot kits are also supplied by several companies. They are mostly made of plastics elements like Lego Mindstorms, rero Reconfigurable Rob ...

, most often with a micro controller inside, is now in fashion.

Examples

See also

References

Further reading