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Who sells Hobby Kits?

Just reading this month's E&T magazine there's a letter sent to the Editor by a member of the IET asking the following:

The demise of Maplin has left a hole in the UK hobbyist's ability to easily access electronic components and kits. RS Components is more aimed at professionals.

Where can I buy a kit to encourage my daughter to pursue this career path?

Given that the magazine is only published once a month and that I suspect the author may be looking for suitable Christmas gifts for their daughter (and any responses won't be published in the magazine until after Christmas now), I thought I'd pop the question here on our forum for our wonderful community members to answer! ?

0 Ross Currie over 4 years ago

Lisa,

Rapid Electronics is worth a look - they have a range of electronic kits, including the Velleman EDU01 Electronics Kit for Beginners, which might be a suitable starting point?

https://www.rapidonline.com/velleman-edu01-electronics-kit-for-beginners-70-4204

If that inspires further interest, they have plenty of other kits of varying complexity and supply all sorts of components for other projects.

I have no connection with Rapid Electronics other than as a very satisfied regular customer.
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0 Roger B over 4 years ago

Conrad may be another possibility:
https://www.conrad.com/t/development-kits-education-t11

I use their Swiss website but they appear to offer an 'International' webshop.

Best regards

Roger
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0 Andy Millar over 4 years ago

My daughter absolutely loved this electronics kit when she was about 9-10 (hers was slightly different as that was several years ago now, but same idea from the same manufacturer):
https://www.johnadams.co.uk/product/hot-wires/

I'd like to recommend the Science Museum shop, as much as anything because I like to support the SM:
https://shop.sciencemuseum.org.uk/children?_ga=2.105315395.1578472987.1574189188-2014751448.1574189188

There are loads of other online shops for educational / fun kits, e.g. just found these UK sites that looks good although I haven't actually tried them:
https://www.curiousminds.co.uk/
https://www.teachtech.xyz/

The second of these has the present I'd like for Christmas ? (and would have bought if it had been around when my children were at home):
https://www.teachtech.xyz/catalog/product/view/id/20916/s/littlebits-korg-synth-kit-english/category/33/

Not really electronics, but looks very well designed.

I totally agree Rapid are also very good, although I haven't actually used them for a long time due to the need for a £30 order to get free delivery. They were fantastically helpful when I used to run school's electronics activities as a volunteer with minimal funding.

On the other point of "...left a hole in the UK hobbyist's ability to easily access electronic components..." to be honest I hadn't used Maplin for that for years due to the high prices and very limited range, 99% of the components I buy now come through eBay! In fact I realised the other day how even my RS and Farnell catalogues, which I used to use all the time, now have (literally) a thick layer of dust on them. One thing I do regularly bless the rise of the internet for is that it's actually far easier than it's ever been for the hobbyist to buy the most obscure of parts.

That all said, my early interest in electronics (and hence my career) might not have taken off without the electronics component shops of the 1970s - when Maplin was just a bedroom followed by one shop in Southend! These two pages from 1979 brought back many of the old memories, particularly Frank Mozer's fabulous shop in Edmonton (apart from the deeply embarrassing memory of Frank interviewing me for a Saturday job when I didn't know that's what we were talking about...) But different times when you could usefully have a small shop, the range of components they needed to stock then was much narrower - these were the days when the RS catalogue was a thin A5 object.
https://www.americanradiohistory.com/hd2/IDX-UK/Technology/Technology-Modern/Archive-Elektor-IDX/IDX/70s/Elektor-1979-July-August-OCR-Page-0148.pdf
https://www.americanradiohistory.com/hd2/IDX-UK/Technology/Technology-Modern/Archive-Elektor-IDX/IDX/70s/Elektor-1979-July-August-OCR-Page-0149.pdf

Cheers,

Andy
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0 Roger Greenwood over 4 years ago

CPC (farnell) have quite a few kits, starting at just a few quid, that's before you get into the whole raspberry/arduino area:-
https://cpc.farnell.com/c/maker-circuit-development/kits-modules#
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Who sells Hobby Kits?

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