Snap Circuits is a line of electronic kits manufactured by Elenco Electronics and aimed at children eight years and older. [1] The kits come in a variety of sizes, and may include capacitors, diodes, electric motors, lamps, LEDs, radios, electromagnets, speakers, resistors, transformers, transistors and voltmeters. The kits contain a plastic baseboard into which the various components and wires can be snapped to easily create a working circuit. [2] Snap Circuits was first released in 2002. [3] We particularly like the fact that Snap Circuits resists the temptation to talk down to kids and keeps information as factual and science-focused as possible. That said, this means they can require a little bit of reading skill and comprehension on the part of the child. So kids who have some difficulties reading may need a little help in this regard from their parents. How Snap Circuits work If you’d like your child to learn a bit of coding with their electronics exploration, the Discover Coding kit will let them do it in a pretty approachable way. Despite being specifically to be safe and usable by kids with snap together and plastic encased parts, Snap Circuit kits are still surprisingly affordable.

Starting around the age of 8, kids begin applying logic and reasoning to concrete situations, they can conserve area and mass, understand basic object transformations and begin to show the ability to sit and concentrate for longer periods of time – all things that will be needed to manipulate and think about objects working together on a circuit board. Snap Circuits can also help kids hone various related cognitive skills that will be important in future STEM learning, such as: In fact, Snap Circuits produces pretty much every type of component that a child or even hobbyist adult would need, from common pieces like resistors and variable capacitors to more unique parts like fiber optic cables, FM modules, and prismatic films. Add-on components, however, can cost a little bit more than standard components due to their specialized construction and safety features.In fact, because they are so popular, Snap Circuits are actually pretty widely used in schools and even colleges as part of lesson plans for teaching electronics. As such, there are tons of lesson plan ideas out there for parents to use or be inspired by. Who are Snap Circuits for? Electrical components provide students ages 8+ with hands-on experience designing and building models of working electrical circuits. If you’re looking for a way to introduce even younger kids to the world of electronics, Snap Circuits does provide a kit for that.

That said, Snap Circuits are a popular hobby for kids and you can find pretty much anything you need for it at pretty much any hobby electronics shop, from resistors to motors to music boxes, but to some degree it does sacrifice freedom of modification and expansion for ease of use and safety. What can kids do with Snap Circuits As such, it’s probably not a great place for a beginner but if your child is getting into robotics, wants to create more sophisticated projects, or has some experience with Arduino, it’s definitely worth a look. Price By snapping a wide variety of brightly colored components together, kids can easily create their own real life, functional circuit boards of varying complexity and in doing so learn the fundamentals of electronics and electrical engineering concepts, from basic circuits to microcontrollers, from Arduino to coding and beyond. Recommended Ages

In particular, we also feel they are an excellent option for helping kinesthetic learners explore STEM topics in a safe way as kids can really get involved in handling, exploring and testing their electronic engineering skills without much danger or risk of breaking anything. Kids can start off learning about basic circuitry and then eventually progress to programming their own Arduino robot or smart plant watering device.

Parents can guide kids through topics like energy and motion, light, current and resistance in a very hands-on way that makes lessons a more multisensory, and perhaps more fun, experience for kids.

Create amazing projects

This means that if you or your child have a unique idea to explore, unlike traditional electronics kits for kids you can’t just pop into an electronics store and buy some wire and some sensors to use with the kit. We believe Snap Circuits are a good idea as a first electronics kit for kids who are really into electronics and are looking for an approachable, solderless way of exploring electronics, without being limited in terms of creativity and function. Parents can think of Snap Circuits as a kind of electrical engineering version of Lego in that with the right components kids can pretty much build whatever they can dream up without having to solder anything or risk damaging connectors by forcing them into a small breadboard hole, which we think is perfect for younger kids. Snap Circuits allows kids to build their own circuits and electronics projects using a pretty innovative snap-together design. Although typically aimed at older kids (12+) these do vastly increase what families can do with Snap Circuits and offer innovative and interesting tech-forward solutions for budding computer engineers.

Officially, Snap Circuits is designed for kids ages 8 and up, and overall we think that this is a good starting age for the product. Overall, we think Snap Circuits offer excellent value for money for parents looking to introduce their kids to electronics.Snap Circuit kits also include a plastic pegboard-like base that you can set the pieces on for stability. They can also use the adapter pieces to go beyond the scope of the kit itself, using more complex Snap Circuit components like an Arduino set, to create some really fantastic Lego builds. Snap Circuits Discover Coding– Design cool electronics and learn to code them