Science Fair 150in1 Electronic Project Kit

An electronic kit is a package of

electrical components An electronic component is any basic discrete electronic device or physical entity part of an Electronics, electronic system used to affect electrons or their associated electromagnetic field, fields. Electronic components are mostly industrial ...

used to build an

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

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 called printed wiring board (PWB), is a Lamination, laminated sandwich structure of electrical conduction, conductive and Insulator (electricity), insulating layers, each with a pattern of traces, planes ...

(PCB) or another type of prototyping board. There are two types of kits. Some build a single device or system. Other types used for education demonstrate a range of circuits. These 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 kit for constructing a single device normally uses 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 (TV) is a telecommunication medium for transmitting moving images and sound. Additionally, the term can refer to a physical television set rather than the medium of transmission. Television is a mass medium for advertising, ...

sets,

oscilloscope An oscilloscope (formerly known as an oscillograph, informally scope or O-scope) is a type of electronic test instrument that graphically displays varying voltages of one or more signals as a function of time. Their main purpose is capturing i ...

s, high-end

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

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

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 (computing), processor for which the data processing logic and control is included on a single integrated circuit (IC), or a small number of ICs. The microprocessor contains the arithmetic, logic, a ...

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 often provided by many suppliers online. The fun and thrill of making your own electronics have shifted, in many cases, from easy-to-comprehend applications and analog devices to more sophisticated digital devices. __NOTOC__

Examples

* The

Altair 8800 The Altair 8800 is a microcomputer introduced in 1974 by Micro Instrumentation and Telemetry Systems (MITS) based on the Intel 8080 CPU. It was the first commercially successful personal computer. Interest in the Altair 8800 grew quickly after i ...

(the first

home computer Home computers were a class of microcomputers that entered the market in 1977 and became common during the 1980s. They were marketed to consumers as affordable and accessible computers that, for the first time, were intended for the use of a s ...

) 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 The Sinclair ZX80 is a home computer launched on 29 January 1980 by Science of Cambridge Ltd. (later to be better known as Sinclair Research). It is notable for being one of the first computers available in the United Kingdom for less than a hu ...

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- ...

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 BBC Micro began life as an upgrade to the Atom, originally known as the Proton. The Atom was a progression of the MOS T ...

computers. * Many

S-100 bus The S-100 bus or Altair bus, later standardized as IEEE 696-1983 ''(inactive-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 in ...

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 Ro ...

, most often with a

micro controller A microcontroller (MC, uC, or μC) or microcontroller unit (MCU) is a small computer on a single integrated circuit. A microcontroller contains one or more CPUs (processor cores) along with memory and programmable input/output peripherals. Pro ...

inside, is now in fashion.

Examples

See also

References

Further reading