When I was a kid, I had the Radio Shack 200 in 1 electronics kit. I spent a lot of hours playing with it, but all the oscillators except the one with the relay remained a mystery to me. I remember reading the explanation of the transistor oscillator, and really not understanding how it worked. I always thought I didn't understand it because I hadn't spent enough time trying to understand...

For his birthday, I got Jonathan the very same kit. Amazing that 30 years later it is still around and identical except for a face lift to the front panel. And of course, Radio Shack isn't around to sell the kit anymore. My level of education has increased considerably, having been to some of the most prestigious engineering schools in France and the USA. This afternoon, I went through the book of schematics. Finally, I was going to get to see what exactly the oscillator circuits were. I would read the explanation, it would make sense, and I would know how they worked!

Well... That's not exactly how it worked out. I now know that my childhood self had no chance of understanding the explanation. I still don't understand it, but now I know that it is because the explanation doesn't actually explain anything. These circuits still aren't trivial to understand, but now with the help of LTSpice, I am finally figuring them out.

Flipping through the pages of circuits, I'm now realizing that the parts that were well explained, I did understand. And for the tricky bits that I didn't understand, the book would often evade the question. Often the hard bit is explained by: "How do you think this works? Remember to take notes so you can come back to them later."

I still think this is a great kit to get started in electronics, but you definitely need more than the book that comes with it if you want the little guys to understand what they're doing.