Reddit reviews Maxitronix 200-in-One Electronic Project Lab | Explore Electronics with 200 Experiments

You can't really skip the theory if you want to work on meaningful, original projects; you probably don't have to read "The Art of Electronics" (1000+ pages!), though. If you have a basic understanding of physics or software engineering, I would shamelessly plug my own short but anatomically correct guide to electronics here.

When it comes to hands-on experience: IMO, single-purpose kits (from Sparkfun and so forth) are probably not that great. They are good to practice soldering and get results quick, but do not teach you much: when you are done, you likely won't be able to recreate that circuit from scratch, or alter it to your liking. Trying to understand - and then building - various projects from All About Circuits, Make blog, or so, might be more worthwhile, as they usually come with a much better and more verbose explanation of how things work, and how the author arrived at that particular design.

Oh, and here's an unorthodox tip: if you are intimidated by breadboards or perfboards, this great set should be a good way to experiment with fairly sophisticated circuits, too. I have it for my kid, but I would not be ashamed starting with it as an adult: unlike their "snap-on" sets, it's not dumbed down at all.

What next? As soon as you are reasonably comfortable with analog electronics, you should try harnessing the power of digital circuits. My recommendation would be to start with understanding 7400 series ICs (well, 74HC), and build a variety devices with it. Heck, a calculator or a rudimentary computer is really not that complicated, and it's extremely satisfying to put them from basic logic components alone!

At that point, moving to AVR ATmega microcontrollers (using avr-gcc or WinAVR) should be a breeze - and will enable you to do complex data processing and output control for your circuits with little or no effort.

A seemingly convenient shortcut is to go with Arduino for digital circuitry instead; the upside is that the platform has a less pronounced learning curve, and a vibrant hobbyist community. The downside is that you end up paying a lot more, and you will soon realize there is no escaping the pesky low-level details if you want to master more advanced devices.

That's a tough one to answer really, but here are a few thoughts on the subject.

If you are looking for the really basic stuff, as in you still need to learn ohms law and how to read a circuit diagram you can start out with the absolute basics;

• 200 in one kit: I started out with this one in 1984 and it's still around. You can also do a search for "electronic bricks", "snap circuits" or some such. It's considered more of a toy than anything else, but it will quickly get you up to speed at least.
  
  
• There is a 2 part lab made to go with a book by Forrest Mims at Radio Shack... Can't find it online, but it's a pretty good kit that goes with a good reference. It's one of the few things Radio Shack offers at a sort of reasonable price.
  
  
• Check out any number of sites for "Basic Electronics Kit". A lot of kit places will separate their kids by skill level. This won't give you an in depth understanding of all things electronic, but it will give you the "learn by doing" experience. You'll build things like larson scanners, and refrigerator alarms, pretty useless, but they are cheap at least.
  
  
• I'm going to add 'any arduino kit' to the list. You won't get ohms law or reading circuit diagrams as part of the lesson plan, but most of these kits will have lessons on how not to fry your arduino and you can pick up the basics by induction
  
  Now, if you already have the circuit reading and ohms law down and you just want to know where to go from there, you've got a lot more choices.
  
  
• Assemble your own kit: Once a person finishes with the above suggestions, they realize that it all would have been cheaper had they just done this at the beginning... Unfortunately, before you go through the basics you probably have no idea what to get for your self assembled kit. Electronix Express has two parts kits and a tool kit. I wouldn't call them the best, but they do have a wide selection of parts at a decent price.
  
  
• Arduino kit. Yes, I mentioned this already, but it's also a good step when "moving up" and learning microcontroller basics. There are better microcontroller boards out there, but arduino is like Ubuntu Linux; lots of community support.
  
  
• Advanced kits. Yes, I skipped intermediate kits. You can still look at those, but really, the difference between basic, intermediate, and advanced kits to me seems to have more to do with confidence than anything else. More parts, more complex diagrams and instructions. These kits will take you longer, but they are no more difficult than any other. One thing they sometimes offer is customizability which offers a great learning experience. I DO suggest that you find a kit that has some kind of support; a forum on the sellers website, or even user made videos on youtube. The instructions you get may not mention things like using blue-tac to hold buttons in place or have other helpful hints that a community may have for you.
  
  Well, lot to think about there. Good luck, and don't forget /r/AskElectronics for help.

Now try and recreate that chip using only discrete components so you can understand how it actually amplifies signals. You should be able to make a little push-pull amp with only two transistors, some supporting components, and maybe an impedance matching transformer for audio output.

Edit: http://www.circuitstoday.com/push-pull-amplifier

Edit: also, not even joking, maybe you can pick up one of these: https://www.amazon.com/Maxitronix-200-in-One-Electronic-Project-Lab/dp/B0002AHR04

I had that as a kid in the 90's and it really jumpstarted my understanding of discrete components. I learned the hard stuff first because of that kit, and only later in the 2000's picked up microcontrollers. At sixteen years old in '98, I built my own working guitar pedal, was so proud of myself because I learned the basics from that kit. It did distortion by overdriving with a preamp stage and also had a 8-ohm speaker output for portability. It sounded like utter trash, but it did what I wanted.

Way back when dinosaurs roamed the Earth and I was a young fella, I forget how old but probably pre-teen, my parents bought me something like this: http://www.amazon.com/Elenco-200-in-One-Electronic-Project-Lab/dp/B0002AHR04 To make a circuit, you'd just bend back a spring and shove a wire in between the coils. Looking at the "related products" on Amazon, it seems like there are a few competitive products out there too. The kit my parents got me kept me entertained for a very long time. This was possibly enhanced by my father who, being an electrical engineer, would periodically involve me fixing broken appliances, handing me the sledge to help tear down walls during renovations and whatnot.

This kit taught me the basics of flip-flops (which can be used to MAKE NOISE! as well as flash lights), relays etc.

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My current flight of fancy is the Arduino and that may prove a more useful tool for you because it can all be done with low voltage, a bread board and a bunch of wires and even better, it needs a computer to program it. The Arduino IDE includes a whole bunch of example programs.

The most basic program is "flash" which just literally flashes an LED. Your next step would be to alter the duty cycle of the flashing. Now have it flash two LEDs and have them on different duty cycles.

A Chinese Arudino UNO clone Starter Kit (which in addition to some basic components and a breadboard includes a stepper motor, servo, tilt switches and other cool things) will set you back less than $50. Additional wires (I recommend getting a pack each of M-M, M-F and F-M dupont leads) are cheap as chips and will help you hook up all the other awesome things you can get like the "arduino sensor kit" which contains no less than 37 different kinds of "sensors" including ultrasonic range sensors, joysticks, push buttons, etc.

Armed with those two kids, a bunch of wires and a laptop running the Arduino IDE, there's a whole world of awesome to play with.

Show me pre-teen who wouldn't like an ultrasonic alarm pointed at her door to make a buzzer ring when mum opens the door, and I'll show you a kid who... is too engrossed in a book to notice. (OK, so my analogies aren't always top notch)

Wow, you guys have a lot of toys.

The nerdiest things I own are electronics project kits. I got my first one as a kid, this one, the 130-in-1 (a different brand, but exactly the same, down to the colors).

While in high school, I found a great deal on this 200-in-1 kit that had a little slicker layout and meter on the front.

Towards the end of high school, I went to radio shack and picked up this beauty, which has a breadboard and a whole bunch of components. It comes with two books, Basic Electronics and Digital Logic Processors. The latter dives into ICs, all of which are included.

I haven't played with them in a while (too much external stresses), but when I do, I'm also going to learn how to program Arduinos to see how I can combine what I learn from each to make something really cool.

This was the one I asked my parents to buy me for my birthday: http://www.amazon.com/Elenco-200-in-One-Electronic-Project-Lab/dp/B0002AHR04. I also bought a couple of Forrest Mims books as well to go with it.

I had a Radio Shack branded 200-in-One project kit when I was a kid.

Edit: This 500-in-One version has a breadboard also.

Holy hell, you're amazing , I'm print a hold to Arduino to complete this learning process.
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Edit: also, not even joking, maybe you can pick up one of these: https://www.amazon.com/Maxitronix-200-in-One-Electronic-Project-Lab/dp/B0002AHR04.

This is actually really amazing, how didn't i hear of it before?
Thank you so much man, you are using a lot of ways for me and lighting my way, Thank you

Not the exact same brand, but some of these classic kits from the 80s are still available new in box. You can find, e.g., the elenco 130 in one and 200 in one kits on Amazon for very reasonable prices.

I did not design the transmitter, I found it on the internet, I was being lazy. This guy was great starting out: http://www.amazon.com/Elenco-200-in-One-Electronic-Project-Lab/dp/B0002AHR04/ref=sr_1_2 for non-microcontroller projects.

One of the projects is a transmitter (I think using 1 or 2 transistors)

I have been at this a long time but don't let that discourage you. With the internet there has never been more resources to learn electronics than now.