Blink

My seven year old son loves watching me work on various house and electronic projects. Increasingly, he also wants to help. Unfortunately, it can be very difficult to find a way to involve him in my work, especially on some of the more advanced projects. Thus I'm increasingly trying to find simple projects I can pick up that can act as trainers for him and let him feel like he accomplished something. I've had him help with simple carpentry type projects before, but was unsure how to set up an electronics project that could involve him. I tried some more advanced projects with him, but he just doesn't have the skill or patience. I spent some time hunting around on Amazon for simple projects but didn't find much until I came across this overly simple seeming kit. I figured I would give it a shot. We set up a little stand with clips to hold the circuit board. I showed him the basics of how to use a soldering gun (carefully, seeing as he's only seven). I then helped him hold the pieces and walked him through the steps of assembling this kit. I was VERY careful in keeping in mind where the tip of the soldering iron was, and where various body parts were, as he was likely to get distracted and let the hot soldering tip meander. I (narrowly) managed to avoid getting my fingers burned and can now return with the results. It's awesome! I kept thinking it would be too simple for him, but it's simple enough that I was able to explain what each part does. He had plenty of questions and seemed to get a pretty understanding of how it worked as a result. There were few enough parts that he didn't run out of patience before soldering the whole thing together. It definitely does require full adult supervision and assistance for a seven year old, but that's to be expected. Once complete, we put the (included) battery in and he tried out the buttons. Much to his delight, pressing each button would result in one of three bright LEDs lighting up (one blue, one green, one red) as long as the button was held. Each button is associated with one colored LED, and pressing multiple buttons at the same time would result in multiple LED's lighting up. My son was delighted, as he had built this almost entirely on his own and it worked! Much to my surprise, his interest in this gadget continued long after we completed building it. He often has it handy in his room near where ever he is playing (or near his bed at night) and will have me answer questions, pushing a button for a red, green, or blue light to indicate whether my answer is right, wrong, or somewhere in the middle. He uses it at night to light the ceiling and walls various colors, and he even noticed that crossing the contacts on the switches is enough to see an LED light up very dimly (mostly only visible in a dark room), prompting a discussion about how electricity can also go through other materials like the salty moisture in your skin (don't worry, very low voltages here). As an additional bonus, since the lights are Red, Green, and Blue, you can use this to teach how to make various colors with emitted light (it's different than with reflected light, such as with paints, which have Red, Yellow, and Blue as primary colors). He can hold any combination of those colors to see what the resulting colors are on the wall at night. Keep in mind, these are the same colors as you have in the TV to display all colors (RGB). As if all that wasn't good enough, with all the playtime he's had with this thing, the battery is still going strong after several months. I call this a quality product! As a side, note, these sorts of things typically contain small amounts of chemicals that are not safe to eat or spend tons of time rubbing all over your body, so if you have a younger child, it's best to keep it out of his/her mouth. Highly rated, it was just what I needed. I've found another simple one from the same company that does slightly different things (variable light levels) and I'll be testing that next. Looking forward to it, as is my son.

This great little kit was the first thing that I have ever soldered together in my life. I was able to complete it in under an hour - and it all works too! I'm a complete beginner who is just starting out in soldering, and I really enjoyed attempting this kit and I felt a lot of satisfaction when I was done. There's great instructions available online from their website too.

This was definitely a fun project to work on! My first time soldering ever and I nailed it within 19 to 20 minutes. Just that easy to work with. Had a tough time desoldering though, probably my mistake when soldering but overall it’s a dope kit. If I had to teach someone, I would recommend this. Would like to try the other kits too. Wish it was a tad bit larger but dope nonetheless!

Excellent beginner's kit. Even though one of the pins on the buttons came broken off, I still made it work. Great for those wanting to get into the hobby.

Really fun kit! Would love to do more like this with increasing complexity. This company had *great* instructions that taught me how it all works and made it really easy to assemble. Highly recommend!