alt.hn

3/19/2026 at 4:35:51 AM

Electronics for Kids, 2nd Edition

 https://nostarch.com/electronics-for-kids-2e

by 0x54MUR41

3/22/2026 at 10:31:35 AM

The shift from discrete components to "black box" ICs has definitely changed how kids (and adults) learn electronics. There's something visceral about building a radio with just a few transistors and a coil that you just don't get from plugging a sensor into an Arduino. No Starch Press has consistently been great at finding that middle ground where the projects are engaging but the underlying fundamentals aren't sacrificed for the sake of a quick success.

by algolint

3/22/2026 at 11:32:17 AM

Yes and you need to blow up a component to understand that you should take those absolute maximum ratings in the datasheet seriously.

by amelius

3/22/2026 at 12:20:56 PM

People do take those absolute maximum ratings quite seriously. I had friends in my undergraduate engineering class who used to connect components directly to the AC mains to observe what would happen if you exceed those ratings. I have to say - the demonstrations using electrolytic capacitors were quite remarkable, though admittedly a little messy.

by goku12

3/22/2026 at 1:38:04 PM

Over the last decade or so, it's really sucked the wind out of my sails when every "electronics" project is actually just a software project of modules wired to an MCU. Hardly anyone is still doing hardcore discreet electronics stuff anymore, and I guess I don't totally blame them, it is punishing as hell heh

by WarmWash

3/22/2026 at 12:12:37 PM

Indeed. The thing with the black box ICs is you still need to understand the electrical interface to them. Without the fundamentals you are crippled the moment you have a problem.

This is my principal objection to some of the Make and Mimms stuff. It's recipes and instructions not building understanding. You aren't asked to discover stuff or build a mental model, merely replicate and copy.

by dgxyz

3/22/2026 at 12:51:00 AM

In the 1960s, Kosmos made the best electronics sets available. If you went through the kits, you received a complete undergraduate course in electronics (less the calculus).

https://generalatomic.com/teil1/index.html

by WalterBright

3/22/2026 at 2:36:08 AM

There ought to be something similar for calculus too. While a detailed and formal treatment of the subject can be delayed till the age at which it's introduced now, I feel that the intuition and feel for calculus can be formed more efficiently at an earlier age.

If nothing else, it may help them understand where to seek solutions for the common problems they encounter. I started learning Electronics at a fairly young age using undergraduate level textbooks that I found lying around. The need for and relationships between concepts in calculus, logarithms and trigonometry were a recurrent problem for me.

PS: If anybody is wondering, those books were from an earlier generation engineer. They were very interesting, to say the least. All the circuits (amplifiers, rectifiers, oscillators, multivibrators, mixers, various RF Txr and Rxr designs, etc) were using vacuum tubes! Diodes, triodes, pentodes, thyratrons, magnetrons, TWTs, etc were used liberally in them. It had a description of an early form of the Instrumental Landing System (ILS). There were also descriptions of some early generation semiconductor devices and their similarity to vacuum tubes. I don't think ICs were in much use back then, because the book had no mentions about them.

I used to spend hours at a time with those books when I was a child. Later I graduated in Electronics engineering and went on to work on the avionics for a satellite launcher. Vacuum tubes were museum pieces by the time I was born. But I was the only one in my undergraduate class who had seen or knew anything about vacuum tubes, when we had lessons on CRTs, magnetrons, etc. I can't stress how deeply those books influenced my education and career. Sweet memories!

by goku12

3/22/2026 at 4:31:23 AM

> The need for and relationships between concepts in calculus, logarithms and trigonometry were a recurrent problem for me.

Oh my gosh, this was me growing up! I loved tinkering with electronics and programming, but I kept bumping against my lack of knowledge wrt more advanced math topics. I usually hacked around it, or more often just switched to a different project.

Now that I'm taking calculus, I feel like I always have a corresponding application for each topic we cover. It's very exciting!

by smj-edison

3/22/2026 at 7:20:22 AM

> There ought to be something similar for calculus too.

mathacademy.com very thourough and highly effective.

by cultofmetatron

3/22/2026 at 4:14:35 AM

The tube circuits I studied were marvels of clever engineering.

by WalterBright

3/22/2026 at 4:18:06 AM

Basic integration and differentiation would fit right in with algebra class. You can teach it in about half an hour.

by WalterBright

3/22/2026 at 8:47:27 AM

They shouldn't teach calculus like they taught it to me and my peers. Basically we just one day started "differentiating" equations. We learnt a completely mechanical process. Like how to chop an onion, except it doesn't actually feed you or taste delicious.

It took me a while to realise the point. It's all about rates of change. They should start with that. No need to bother with the maths, just look at graphs and be like "that's a steeper slope than that", and, ooh, that one's sloping in the opposite direction. This is a fundamental intuition that's so useful to have. Most people don't understand that braking is acceleration. They just don't have the mental model that lets them see fuel burn and braking as opposite things. The sooner this intuition is there the better. Then teach the maths.

by globular-toast

3/22/2026 at 11:32:14 AM

Agreed on all counts.

> They shouldn't teach calculus like they taught it to me and my peers. Basically we just one day started "differentiating" equations. We learnt a completely mechanical process.

I had a similar experience and it did ruin the fun in Calculus for me. It took me a long time to derive a bare-minimum mental model that I was satisfied with. It was at this point that I could 'feel' (imagine) how the general second-order linear differential equation (of two variables) works, without the need to 'calculate' or derive anything. This equation is the fundamental model for countless phenomena in the universe. It's such a shame, because that equation is easy to explain in words, without doing a single step of derivation.

Don't get me wrong. Formalism and rigor do have very important roles in Mathematics. But ignoring intuition and emphasizing formalism doesn't get you anywhere. Intuition isn't always right, but it shows you the 1000ft view of the problem when it does get it right. Formalizing the solution gets easier from there.

I have noticed that even professionals are taken by surprise when I convey the descriptive explanation. It shows how badly these things are taught. (I don't know if this is the situation everywhere.)

> The sooner this intuition is there the better. Then teach the maths.

Yes, that is exactly what I was suggesting. However, that 'intuition' is also part of Mathematics. Many practitioners call it the 'Mathematical sense', as opposed to common sense. You might have seen a rare few gifted individuals who find the correct answers to unintuitive and confusing problems (like the infamous Monty Hall problem) in their first try. They're employing this mathematical sense while the others revert to common sense. Who knows? Even you may be using it and surprising others without realizing it.

Unfortunately, our educational systems have reinforced this misconception that Mathematics is all about manipulating numbers and symbols (for many, even the idea about symbols are missing). This is a very sad situation that just sucks the life out of mathematics. A long essay (book) by Paul Lockhart, named 'A Mathematician's Lament' explains this problem splendidly.

PS: Funnily enough, I always struggled in and hated mathematics! Others were so good at applying long sequences of operations to get to the answer, while it was Chinese to me! (No offense intended here). But I was good at science. I relied on countless diagrams, tables, concept graphs, signal flow graphs, etc in place of equations and formulae to achieve this. I just converted them to equations and formulae whenever I needed to reproduce those. I thought, "Who needs mathematics when you can reason your way to the answer?"

It was close to the end of my formal education that I realized that every reasoning that I had done in my life was proper Mathematics! I had strong autistic traits and following numerous steps in sequence and in parallel was near impossible for me. But where I made up for that was in spatial intelligence. I had created book after book of Mathematics described in a visual language that I could digest. I didn't really hate mathematics. What I hated was the way in which it was taught and represented.

Learning Mathematics has become a whole lot easier and enjoyable after realizing it and embracing the fact that I needed my own ways of doing it. But honestly, I wish that so much time wasn't wasted in needless frustration.

by goku12

3/22/2026 at 10:54:46 AM

I wasn't around in the 60s but I had a chemistry set from Salter Science in the 80s and loved it. They had details on how to make simple glassware and so many other things. I didn't have carbon rods for the electrochemistry section but I managed to supplement the manual with another "science experiments book" and pulled out a few from spent batteries. Even synthesised a few simple salts based on my understanding of how things worked so that I could try out the "advanced" experiments from the book.

Modern chemistry sets are extremely lightweight and boring in comparison.

by noufalibrahim

3/22/2026 at 4:06:24 PM

Modern chemistry sets appeared around 1970, when they started removing "dangerous" chemicals from them. My parents gave me what turned out to be the last decent chemistry set. I had a great deal of fun with it.

Current ones are little more than what you can find in the kitchen.

by WalterBright

3/22/2026 at 9:49:22 AM

Oh I absolutely loved those. In the early 90, when I was maybe 6 years old, I had this one, the left half at least:https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Kosmos-electronic-sy...

It came with over 20 electronic schematics, pictograms how they were set up in the box, an explanation how they worked and a kid compatible story about a professor, a robot and I think some kids. I absolutely loved it. And I can say with absolute certainty that I wouldnt have chosen my current career and hobby trajectory had it not been for this electronics set.

I've moved cities multiple times now and the kit has disappeared over the years. You can still get them on ebay some times, but I was too cheap to buy one.

Through an incomprehensibly unlikely coincidence, someone put this exact kit on the sidewalk for grabs a fee houses and away, maybe a year ago or two. Naturally I took it, and it's complete and seems even unused.

I am now a father and I hope my daughter will find this kit just as interesting as I did 30 years ago.

by remuskaos

3/22/2026 at 9:36:14 AM

I loved my Kosmos electronics kits. My mom threw out the kits eventually but I still have the manuals.

https://patric-sokoll.de/SonstigeSammlungen/Kosmos%20E200/Ha...

My first computer was their CP1. It was aimed at older children and teens. You programmed it in a custom assembly language. The manual included lots of projects and instructions on how to hook it up to their electronics kits.

http://www.8bit-homecomputermuseum.at/computer/kosmos_comput...

http://www.8bit-homecomputermuseum.at/computer/pictures/kosm...

by i_don_t_know

3/22/2026 at 7:15:50 AM

In the 80s and 90s, RadioShack also had an impressive kit collection. Just realizing it was to get kids “hooked”.

Elenco continues to sell one of the kits that I used to have, less RadioShack branding.

by xattt

3/22/2026 at 11:25:01 AM

The 1950s „Kosmos Radiomann“ Kits were pure magic: https://www.sarganserland-walensee.ch/radio_tv_historisch/ra...

That feeling when you hit the right spot on the crystal after stringing up a long antenna in your room…

by MrBuddyCasino

3/22/2026 at 4:12:59 PM

My brother has the Kosmos Radiomann (a later version than the one in the link) and the Technikus kits, and the All Chemist one.

Some years ago I was in Stuttgart and looked at the Kosmos offerings, and they were pretty sad.

by WalterBright

3/22/2026 at 12:34:11 PM

Is it me, or are hobby electronic shops much harder to find today, like the one that sells Arduino, basic RCL's, and common IC's? I am not sure if it's just a trend that everything is sold online or if the interest is shifting towards software.

by SphericalCowww

3/22/2026 at 3:22:34 PM

Because china is taking over in that sector, why should I pay triple when I can purchase it straight from the manufacturer. You can find anything electronics related on aliexpress.

by 3abiton

3/22/2026 at 4:06:44 AM

Not a kid but what are the next steps after this book? I've been trying to find the steps of the ladder between "playing with muxes and clocks" and "designing a USB3 peripheral", but that has been a challenge in itself.

by cyberrock

3/22/2026 at 9:58:14 AM

Don't wish to write my usual rant on this here but that's the curse of electronics books. You get taught by a recipe book but you don't leave with enough skills to design your own one. Nor do you know which recipes should be served together. It requires a much lower level of understanding and that is hard.

I got taught via recipe books then studied EE at university and had to throw everything away. Then I started in industry and had to throw that away again. There's a huge moat between the two ends.

by dgxyz

3/22/2026 at 4:29:55 AM

Make 5-10 of multivibrators each on different schemeatics. Bonus point - make them as fast as you can - starting from the prototyping stage and finishing with the device ready to be either gifted or used as a lab generator.

But playing with clocks and multiplexer is definitely not a beginning of the ladder.

by eimrine

3/22/2026 at 5:09:21 AM

Yeah, it seems clocks and muxes is what comes after this book? A possibly not so great suggestion is building a radio(receiver)? It is pretty challenging with oscillators, tuned circuits, mixers, amplifiers (basically a mix of RF, AC and DC).

by thenthenthen

3/21/2026 at 8:55:29 PM

I figure it's fair enough, since this is a great but not free book, to drop https://www.allaboutcircuits.com/ - a truly amazing, and in my opinion extraordinarily well written and organized free learning resource.

Specifically https://www.allaboutcircuits.com/textbook/

by eth0up

3/21/2026 at 10:02:29 PM

It's a labor of love and a great reference to go back to, but I wouldn't recommend it for newcomers.

Traditional books benefit from having an editor who (ideally) asks questions like "who are you writing for", "what's the best order to introduce ideas", and "how much detail is enough". If you don't ask these questions, you often end up getting too deep into the weeds or jumping back and forth between ideas in ways that can be difficult to follow. To give you a specific example, the guide spends a lot of time on some of the more obscure theories in DC network analysis before even defining what a battery is, capacitors and inductors are explained in the DC section by focusing on their AC characteristics, there is a ton of unnecessary quantum physics trivia ahead of explaining what a diode is, discussion of op-amps kicks off with an odd reference to calculus, etc.

Again, I don't mean that as a criticism, it's just that (properly edited) books have their merits.

by chromacity

3/21/2026 at 10:21:39 PM

I think you make excellent points and can't see anything I don't agree with. For me, there's no substitute for a proper book, especially being a bit of an eccentric learner.

But certainly AAC could be a brilliant supplementary resource.

by eth0up

3/21/2026 at 11:18:09 PM

The Art of Electronics, by Horowitz and Hill, is aimed at a university or professional audience, but could also be an incredible learning resource for a younger student (or older hobbyist!) interested in learning more about the field.

Speaking for myself, I would have loved to read something like this when I was first experimenting with electronics as a child. A lot of the details would have gone over my head, but even just knowing the general outlines of the topics it covered would have been a huge step up.

by duskwuff

3/21/2026 at 9:49:29 PM

[flagged]

by holyhnhell

3/22/2026 at 3:47:46 AM

Thanks for the name. I've only glanced so far, but I foresee reading more of his work.

by eth0up

3/22/2026 at 7:22:54 AM

I love no starch press books. Nothing else to add.

by ifh-hn

3/21/2026 at 11:00:01 PM

Is there a parts kit sold for this book? I couldn't find one online.

by viburnum

3/21/2026 at 11:15:54 PM

Im reminded of a book from Dick Smith in the 90s called “Funway into electronics”.

It had a wonderful kit where you would use screws in a board so you could see every wire path. Much easier to explain than modern breadboards

by boredatoms

3/22/2026 at 11:45:25 AM

Yeah I started with that. Eventually did an electronics engineering degree. Now I just write python and CI config.

by rr808

3/21/2026 at 11:14:38 PM

Discontinued until they can add age verification to wires.

by kgwxd

3/22/2026 at 5:36:41 AM

does anybody know if it will be available for shipping outside US? Seems a cool book, from the chapter preview

by madduci

3/22/2026 at 6:09:02 AM

Amazon.de for example already has it(for preorder). Oreilly books online has the first edition available right now. I reckon they might add the second revision when it comes out.

by Bishonen88

3/22/2026 at 5:57:44 AM

Yes, I've bought book several books from No Starch Press and delivered to APAC.

by somepleb

3/21/2026 at 9:17:29 PM

As a parent I would appreciate if it came with an age recommendation.

by oytis

3/21/2026 at 9:25:10 PM

It's right there on the page. Age 10 and above

by Bishonen88

3/21/2026 at 11:49:06 PM

I had a hard time finding it as well. I think maybe because the text is underlined and the font is small? It is harder to read "into" that text. Maybe it should be on its own line? Or it should be up next to "Full Color" / the cover? Maybe some "copy" pro would know the reason right away but it seems rather hard to find to me.

by plant-ian

3/22/2026 at 1:17:31 AM

While I agree that it could be more prominent, the old man in me wants to scream "Don't be so lazy in reading!"

If you ignore the reviews near the end, the page doesn't have a lot of text. And not everything needs to be accessible by quickly scanning.

by BeetleB

3/22/2026 at 2:29:12 AM

I found the age guidance with cmd+F, "age", enter. Probably would have tried "year" next if that hadn't found it.

by jen20

3/21/2026 at 11:15:23 PM

As a parent, I find the age recommendations insulting.

by kgwxd

3/22/2026 at 1:31:51 AM

It's only a recommendation, not a strict instruction. It's the age group that the author is targeting and is assumed to have the requisite background knowledge and reasoning skills required to follow the material. It's understood to vary between individuals.

This is similar to 'intended audience' section of technical books for adults. Do you find those insulting?

by goku12

3/22/2026 at 4:23:35 AM

He requested that age requirement, it makes him looking like an etatist. His family will never raise Terence Tao even if their boy will be exactly same qualities.

Some kids use to solder earlier than at 10y.o. so the intended audience is wrong. If the kid has not learned what is a transistor by the age of 5 yet, they are not an intended audience.

by eimrine

3/22/2026 at 12:11:27 PM

> He requested that age requirement,

Who?

> it makes him looking like an etatist.

Pardon me, but what does that mean? Is that a typo, or am I simply ignorant?

> Some kids use to solder earlier than at 10y.o. so the intended audience is wrong. If the kid has not learned what is a transistor by the age of 5 yet, they are not an intended audience.

I don't know. I can't speak for anyone else, but I do have a history related to that. No one around me knew anything about transistors or soldering. I learned those myself by referring books from the library and few others that I convinced my parents to buy me. But it was well after I was 5. The learning was rapid once I got started.

That's why I confidently said that the age is a guideline and that it may vary between individuals. Learning in children is quite chaotic and it's difficult to establish hard and fast rules.

by goku12

3/22/2026 at 11:50:35 AM

[dead]

by rahimnathwani

3/22/2026 at 5:58:54 AM

[dead]

by black_13