Hot Wires Electronics Kit for Young Kids

 
I can’t say there have been many occasions over the last year of home schooling that I’ve genuinely looked forward to. Certainly not listening to pre-recorded lessons explaining fronted adverbials to my nine-year-old, or split diagraphs to my six-year-old. But one set of lessons I did get excited about – before they started – were the pre-recorded electronics lessons on the Oak National Academy.

Unfortunately, Harrison didn’t quite share my enthusiasm, which was disappointing as he’s always loved knowing how things work. But to be honest I could see how he wasn’t enthused, because the online lessons on building simple circuits seemed so abstract. It wasn’t hands-on, he’d watch the teacher build a circuit, then draw the circuit diagram, then say “can I have a break now?”

He found it boring.

Which is why I was so keen to get my hands on the John Adams Hot Wires set, which looked like everything his online lessons weren’t; fun, exciting, colourful, inspiring. Basically, everything that good teaching should be. And my suspicions that this might finally provoke an interest in him were well founded.

The John Adams Hot Wires kit cleverly boosts interest in experiments 2 and 3, after teaching the most basic (lighting a lamp) circuit in experiment 1. How does it do this? Well, experiment 2 uses another simple circuit to spin a motor with a fan on top, nothing too exciting, until experiment 3 encourages you to switch polarity on the fan and press the switch. The result appears the same for a few seconds, only for the fan to then whizz into the air and fly on an erratic tour of your room.

After that he was hooked, first building more complex circuits – in series and parallel – while adding resistors and light emitting diodes. He’s progressed with enthusiasm through the experiments involving light and sound and is well on his way to the lie detector and burglar alarm experiments.

The great thing about the Hot Wires set is that the 54-page colour instruction booklet is so simple to follow. The snap-on components are colour coded and numbered so they are easily matched to the diagram in the booklet. It’s very hard to go completely wrong. The components clip neatly together and there is a board on which everything can be built. I was also pleased to see that – as well as this simplified way of identifying the components – they also have the proper electrical symbol on them too. This has certainly reinforced and built upon the work Harrison has been doing in year 4, and crucially he’s now having fun doing this work. He’s currently up to experiment 22 (a variable tone morse code generator) and now knows the symbols for diodes, a speaker, resistors, a capacitor, different switches, LEDs and more.

The Hot Wires kit states that it is suitable for children 8+ but our six-year-old daughter Ella has been perfectly capable of putting together experiments 1-15 so far and judging by her enthusiasm she’ll be building the logic circuits (experiments 96-100) in no time.

And one last thing I’ve noticed with both children is that – as well as learning about electronics – they’re also working on their problem solving and critical thinking skills. Things go wrong, components can be put in the wrong way around, but diagnosing the problem and fixing it has been part of the fun. All in all it is well worth the price tag.

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