This Lesson is for advanced students. Most people who learn about electronics start by studying the theory of how electric current flows through wires and other stuff that conducts electricity, called conductors. Unfortunately this stuff is BORING! I mean, I can’t stand it myself sometimes. So, we’re going to start with what I call “Lego brick” electronics.
You’re going to start by building cool things, then learn what each part of the circuit does, but not go into the minute details. You’ll learn how to build circuits out of electronic “bricks” like you can build something out of Lego bricks. You don’t need to design your own Lego bricks, but just focus on using them. Same thing here – you’ll learn how to put pieces together to build circuits. Our pieces are electronic components. Things like transistors, resistors, integrated circuits (chips), capacitors and lots more.
Although you can’t see electricity, you can certainly detect its effects – a buzzer sounding, a light flashing, a motor turning… all of these happen because of electricity. Which is why electricity experiments are among the most frustrating. You can’t always tell where the problem is in a circuit that refuses to work right.
We’re going to outline the different electronic components (resistors, capacitors, diodes, transistors, etc) so you get a better feel for how to use them in a circuit. While we’re not going to spend time on why each of these parts work (which is a topic best reserved for college courses), we are going to tackle how to use them to get your circuit to do what you want. The steps to building several different electronics projects are outlined very carefully so you can really understand this incredible micro-world.
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