Introduction
Hello.
Welcome to The Crafty Kid’s Guide to DIY Electronics. My name is Helen and I wrote this book. As well as being a writer, I like to invent and make things. Some of my inventions have been quite serious and scientific. Some of my inventions have been very silly and full of joy. I’ve made extremely high-tech devices that talk to the Internet and measure pollution, I’ve made lots of electronic and analog instruments and I’ve also made herds of gesture-controlled robot unicorns for children (and very excited adults) to race.
I think that technology is awesome, but I also think that playfulness, creativity, and craft are just as important. I believe that when we mix up two different skills or interests we make them both better—and we look at the things we thought we knew before in a different way. In this book I want to show you some of the super-cool things you can make when you combine craft skills with electronics know-how.
Even though I want to share some of the things I’ve learned with you, this book is not a textbook. You won’t find any formulas or lengthy lectures about electrical engineering. Don’t get me wrong, there are loads of great facts and explanations in this book—and the science of electricity is super-interesting—but that’s not what this book is for. The Crafty Kid’s Guide to DIY Electronics is about making cool things, exploring new electronics and craft concepts, and getting hands-on to develop the skills you’ll need to invent your own projects in the future.
When I talk to young people about the work I do, I always get asked the same kind of questions. I get asked about my favorite invention (probably the robot unicorns), I get asked if I’ve ever blown things up or set them on fire (yes, all the time, and I once set my eyebrows on fire too), and I get asked what a child should learn if they want to grow up and be an inventor or a maker. The answer to this last question is surprising to most people. There are three important things that I’ve learned over the course of my life that help me do what I think is the best job in the world.
Thing Number One: Resilience
In this book we’re going to explore lots of different ways of making and inventing cool things. You might find some of the new techniques and concepts difficult or confusing at first. You’ll almost certainly get something wrong and have to undo your work or worse—start over again from scratch. I know what that feels like, and it’s not nice. Resilience is the ability to bounce back from this feeling quickly. I never get things right the first time I make something—making mistakes and trying again is essential to being a good inventor and maker.
Thing Number Two: Creativity
I think of creativity as applied imagination. One of the most famous scientists of all time, Albert Einstein, said that “imagination is more important than knowledge,” and I agree. Our daydreams, our thoughts, the stories we tell ourselves, and the places we go in our minds shape who we are in every way. Creativity is when we take little pieces of our imagination and make them real. To be an inventor you’ll need to practice taking impossible, impractical, and beautiful ideas out of your mind and into the world.
Thing Number Three: Practical Skills
A skill is knowing how to do a thing or make a thing work. That thing could be threading a needle, it could be using a tool the proper way, it could be knowing how to use code to make a robot move, or it could be knowing what materials to use in different situations. As an inventor you’ll need to collect a lot of different skills and you’ll also have to learn where—and who—to ask for help.
While you read The Crafty Kid’s Guide to DIY Electronics I want you to keep these three things in mind. If something goes wrong, practice your resilience by keeping a cool head, working out what the problem is, and trying again. I’d also like you to practice your creativity. In this book I’ve shared 20 things I’ve made, but I hope you don’t make them in exactly the same way as me. In many of the projects I explain how I came up with my ideas and I hope this inspires you to come up with your own twists on my makes. I’ll also be sharing loads of useful practical skills along the way, including how to sew different types of stitches, how to strip electrical wires, how to tie useful knots, and how to check that your electricity is going where it should.
Next, I’ll lay out the things you’ll learn, the tools you’ll need and the materials you’ll use in more detail, but first I want to talk to you about where to look and how to ask for help when you need it. I lecture on electronics at a university in London and I always joke that the most important thing that I teach my students is how to use a search engine properly. We live in a time where anyone with access to the Internet has an amazing opportunity to learn how to do pretty much anything. The problem is finding it. There are a number of great websites I go to for good quality tutorials and advice. My go-to websites for electronics guidance and inspiration are Adafruit, Sparkfun, Instructables, KobaKant, and YouTube.
Finally, I want you to feel like you can ask me for help. I am active on Twitter and help people troubleshoot their projects almost as often as I ask other people for help with my own projects. I even have a YouTube channel of my own, where I post videos of things I make and simple instructions on how to use tools. You’ll find step-by-step videos of many of the makes in this book and you can post comments to ask for guidance if you get stuck.
Find me at www.youtube.com/c/HelenLeigh or www.twitter.com/HelenLeigh.
How This Book Works
This book has four parts that focus on different types of crafty projects: Paper Circuits (page 3), Soft Circuits (page 73), Wearables (page 137) and Robots (page 197). In each part you’ll find a range of step-by-step projects, from entry-level makes that teach basic techniques to more complex challenges that encourage you to level up your electronics and craft skills. Each project introduces at least one new skill or concept, which you can find by looking for the owls.
The owls signal new knowledge. You can read these sections in the context of the make, but you can also read them on their own. At the beginning of each part you will find a handy list of skills and concepts covered in each project, with a page number so you can find them easily.
What You’ll Need
When I started writing this book I thought very carefully about the kind of tools and materials I wanted to use. I tried to keep each project as low cost as possible, with lots of reusable materials across the different parts. I hope you’ll have most of the tools and craft materials at home already, but if you don’t they are easy to find and cheap to buy. If you don’t already have one I would suggest investing in a good, sharp craft knife (sharper is safer, as you’ll find out on page 60) and a small cutting mat.
There are some materials that you probably don’t already have. These are the electronics components. You can find them easily online. My four favorite shops are Pimoroni, Adafruit, Kitronik, and Sparkfun. Again, I’ve tried to keep the cost to a minimum. All the components you buy will be reusable in other projects—either my projects or your own inventions.
To make all the projects in this book, you’ll need the following tools.
One 12-inch ruler, ideally metal with a non-slip back
Flexible tape measure
Scissors
Needle-nosed pliers
A sharp craft knife
Wire cutters
Sewing needles
Sewing pins
Embroidery hoops
Cutting mat
Clear nail varnish
Hot glue gun (optional)
You’ll also need the following materials.
From a Craft Store
Assorted colors of card
Assorted colors of paper, including white and black
Assorted colors of origami paper, including red
Crepe or tissue paper in any color
Scrap cardboard
Fifteen 8-inch squares of soft felt, including pink, yellow, and navy
Assorted colors of ordinary cotton thread, including pink and yellow
Assorted colors of embroidery thread, including white
Buttons, beads, and pom-poms
Wadding
Craft glue
Sticky tape
Pegs or small bulldog clips
Two pairs of metal press studs
Paper- or plastic-covered bendable craft wire
Leather or nylon cord
One sewable badge pin
One headband
Two pairs of woolen gloves
Googly eyes
From an Electronics Store
5mm wide copper tape roll
Ten Chibitronics LED stickers
White and yellow 3mm or 5mm LEDs (I bought a pack of assorted LEDs in a nice little box from Amazon)
Two sewable/stickable buzzers (I bought mine from Kitronik)
At least ten sewable LEDs (I bought mine from Kitronik and Adafruit)
Three sewable Lilypad or Adafruit LED sequins in different colors
One sewable on/off switch
One sewable/stickable vibration motor (I bought mine from Teknikio)
One Teknikio star sewable LED
Two Teknikio heart sewable LEDs
One Teknikio RGB LED
One Teknikio sewable light sensor
One reel of conductive thread (I bought mine from Adafruit and Pimoroni)
One square of conductive fabric (I used EeonTex from Sparkfun)
Stranded electrical wire
At least one 3V DC motor
At least two sewable 3V battery packs with on/off switches (I bought mine from Pimoroni)
3V batteries
Troubleshooting
At the end of each project you’ll find my guide to troubleshooting. As I said on the last page, you’ll probably get things wrong quite often. When something doesn’t work, practice your resilience by keeping a cool head and going through my troubleshooting guide step by step. I’m really good at finding out what’s wrong in other people’s projects, and it’s not because I’m some amazing electronics genius—I simply have a method that I work through.
First, I check the power. Is the battery in? Is it the right way round? Is it switched on? Is it flat? You’d be astonished at how many complex projects don’t work for one of these simple reasons.
Next, I check the components. Are they the right way round? Are they broken? Are they connected in properly? Checking each component before you add it into your circuit is a great habit to get into.
Finally, I check the connections. Are my paths going where they should? Is there a short circuit? Is there a tear in my copper tape or did I accidentally snip off a corner? Trace the path with your finger to make sure your electricity is going where you want it to. Remember, electricity is lazy. If you give it the chance to avoid an obstacle, such as a component, it will. Even a tiny connecting bit of tape or thread will stop your circuit from working.
Work through each of these in order and you’ll almost always figure out what’s wrong on your own. It’s not a nice feeling when your project doesn’t work, but it’s an amazing feeling when you figure out why and fix it yourself.
I hope you enjoy this book as much as I enjoyed writing it. I am so excited to share my ideas with you. Let’s get making!
Yours,
