re: Kit to learn soldering? Motors? Simple boards?

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Makes me miss old school Radio Shack

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Back in the day, they had simple electronics kits for noobs/kids. They came with red plastic project boards which were a blessing and a curse. It taught you the importance of heat sinks and not overheating components because you would melt the plastic before you could ruin anything. On the negative side it did lead to a lot of beginner cold solder joints though.

Found a picture of them, I think I did all of this at some point. I know the first one I did was the goofy lite kit.




I also had one of these. I "played" with it a ton. You can see it had little springs that you bent over and held the wires.




At some point, I cut the little meter out and built an anemometer with it. I used a small universal motor some erector set parts and the bottoms of 4 Dixie cups. I attached it to our fence in the backyard, ran wire in through my window and hooked it to the meter on my desk. It actually worked until it rained enough that it ruined the motor.