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Electronics for Kids, 2nd Edition
- eth0up 7mo agoI figure it's fair enough, since this is a great but not free book, to drop https://www.allaboutcircuits.com/ 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/ https://www.allaboutcircuits.com/textbook/
- holyhnhell 7mo ago[flagged]
- eth0up 7mo agoThanks for the name. I've only glanced so far, but I foresee reading more of his work.
- chromacity 7mo agoIt'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.
- eth0up 7mo agoI 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.
- duskwuff 7mo agoThe 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.
- oytis 7mo agoAs a parent I would appreciate if it came with an age recommendation.
- Bishonen88 7mo agoIt's right there on the page. Age 10 and above
- plant-ian 7mo agoI 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.
- BeetleB 7mo agoWhile 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.
- jen20 7mo agoI found the age guidance with cmd+F, "age", enter. Probably would have tried "year" next if that hadn't found it.
- kgwxd 7mo agoAs a parent, I find the age recommendations insulting.
- goku12 7mo agoIt'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?
- viburnum 7mo agoIs there a parts kit sold for this book? I couldn't find one online.
- kgwxd 7mo agoDiscontinued until they can add age verification to wires.
- boredatoms 7mo agoIm 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
- rr808 7mo agoYeah I started with that. Eventually did an electronics engineering degree. Now I just write python and CI config.
- theophrastus 7mo agoJameco sells one [1] [1] https://www.jameco.com/z/KIT-EFK-BUNDLE-Jameco-Kitpro-Components-Bundle-for-Electronics-for-Kids-Book_2244720.html https://www.jameco.com/z/KIT-EFK-BUNDLE-Jameco-Kitpro-Compon...
- deleted 7mo ago[deleted]
- WalterBright 7mo agoIn 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 https://generalatomic.com/teil1/index.html
- goku12 7mo agoThere 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!
- in_cahoots 7mo agoMy father introduced this book to me when I was around 10. I will forever be grateful. https://www.worldofbooks.com/products/calculus-the-easy-way-book-douglas-downing-9780812040784 https://www.worldofbooks.com/products/calculus-the-easy-way-...
- cyberrock 7mo agoNot 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.
- eimrine 7mo agoMake 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.
- thenthenthen 7mo agoYeah, 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).
- dgxyz 7mo agoDon'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.
- madduci 7mo agodoes anybody know if it will be available for shipping outside US? Seems a cool book, from the chapter preview
- somepleb 7mo agoYes, I've bought book several books from No Starch Press and delivered to APAC.
- Bishonen88 7mo agoAmazon.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.
- black_13 7mo ago[dead]
- ifh-hn 7mo agoI love no starch press books. Nothing else to add.
- algolint 7mo ago[flagged]
- amelius 7mo agoYes and you need to blow up a component to understand that you should take those absolute maximum ratings in the datasheet seriously.
- goku12 7mo agoPeople 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.
- dgxyz 7mo agoIndeed. 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.
- BobbyTables2 7mo agoLoved the transistor, SCR, and op-amp depictions in the Mimms books but was intensely frustrated that I couldn’t understand how the example schematics worked. After University classes, I realize now they didn’t even hint at biasing or use feedback. All the resistors in the transistor circuits seemed overly “ornamental” and I could t see their function from the descriptions.
- dgxyz 7mo agoYep. The Mimms books are actually terrible. Had loads of problems getting stuff working out of them in the 80s. Assumed it was me. So roll on a few years and our linear circuits lecturer at uni launched into a 30 minute diatribe about how utterly awful they are and to forget everything. And you know what, he was spot on. The points were specifically extrapolations of what you suggest i.e. poor biasing and feedback designs which forced relying on device characteristics. This was damage multiplied by the crappy second rate parts that Radio Shack sold. I only ever assume people with positive memories of that crap either never built anything or were lucky enough to have parts that were binned as Mimms' were.
- rahimnathwani 7mo ago[dead]
- SphericalCowww 7mo agoIs 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.
- 3abiton 7mo agoBecause 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.