Its likely that as a geek you are aware of the Maker movement. I have to admit it is hard being a parent in a house full of electronic parts. My kids are enamored with all of the shiny parts and LEDs that are hooked up to the latest project . Unfortunately it is pretty to tough to teach young kids about electronics since the parts are small and sharp.
Luckily for us Limor Fried (Ladyada) and Phillip Torrone over at Adafruit Industries recognized the plight of the Maker parent and are collaborating with illustrator Robert Ullman on a coloring book filled with all the basics of electronics that a maker-in-training could need.
The “E is for Electronics” coloring book is currently a work in progress, that you can watch come to fruition over the next few months.
Here are the current ideas for each of the letters:
a – amperes
b – battery / breadboard
c – capacitor
d – diode
e – electronics
f – fpga/frequency/fet
g – ground
h – hertz
i – current/infrared/inductor
j – joule
k – kelvin
l – led
m – motor/microcontroller/multimeter/mos/mosfet the cat
n – noise/npn
o – ohm/oscilloscope/opamp
p – potentiometer/pcb/printing in 3D
q – quartz / quantum field effect transistor
r – resistor/relay
s – switch/silcon/soldering iron
t – transistor
u – ultraviolet/usb/uart
v – voltage
w – wire/watt
x – xtal
y – yagi antenna (something else?)
z – zener
I have to say that I am excited to be able to set my kids up with a coloring book and crayons while my husband and I are working on our latest electronics project, and have all of us be able to do electronics as a family.
Do you have any ideas for the Adafruit team? Visit the collaboration site and leave them a message!
Have you tried Snap Circuits? They take most of the “small” and all of the “sharp” out of working with electronics. They are rated age 8+, but our oldest has been working with them since he was barely 5 years old, with no incidents. The actual components are often visible in a large chunk of plastic, so the transition to “real” electronics shouldn’t be too hard.