“This is part of a series of Instructables intended for teachers about educating students in the classroom around making and tinkering. For more about the details of this project, check out our blog.
Learning about circuits and electricity can be an intimidating task - it seems so complicated! This activity involves the use of a modular set of electronic components that are easy to hook up to each other - like LEGOs for circuitry. In this Instructable, I will assume that you have already built the circuit block set and have a few of the basic components - battery, motor, knife switch, momentary switch, LED, speaker and potentiometer. The circuit combinations possible with a few of these components are almost endless, and any electronic component that you can glue onto a block of wood will work - take apart some old toys and add some of their working bits to this set, for example.
For full instructions on how to make a set of circuit blocks (or add new ones), visit this Snapguide from Learning Technologies at the Science Museum of Minnesota.
There is also a commercially available set of modular electronics called Little Bits. They are a great educational tool, but their downsides are that they are very expensive and not quite as durable as one would expect. Plus, you don’t get to make them, so where’s the fun in that!”