Family Electronics Workshop

Website: https://electrolab.wyattfry.com

A sequenced, build-it-yourself electronics course for a parent and two kids (ages 8 and 11 at the start, fall 2026).

• It starts with first solder joints and builds up to:
• robots
• our own test gear
• a Bluetooth speaker that holds its own against a $75 store-bought one
• radio remote control
• ham radio
• We fabricate as much as possible ourselves, including home-etched boards and wooden enclosures.

No single book or website already does this whole arc, so this repo stitches together the best existing resources (see resources.md) with our own projects.

How to use this

• One unit at a time, roughly in order. Each unit teaches the skills the next one needs (see the map). Skipping ahead is fine for a unit that grabs someone, but come back.
• Sessions are 60 to 90 minutes. Stop while it's still fun. Every unit lists rough session counts.
• Every unit has two tracks. The 8 y.o. track and the 11 y.o. track build the same thing with different jobs. The parent is the safety officer and the "senior engineer".
• Keep a build log. Copy templates/build-log.md into the unit folder: photos, what broke, what we learned. Debugging stories are the best part.
• Earn badges. Each unit awards skill badges from the skill ladder. They're worth making physical, e.g. stickers on the toolbox.

The units

#	Unit	What we build	New skills	Sessions
0	Workshop	Bench, tools, safety rules	Iron handling, safety	1
1	First Light	Practice board, then a two-transistor LED blinker	Through-hole soldering, polarity, schematics	2–3
2	Crystal Radio	AM radio with no battery	Coils, tuning, antennas, resonance	2
3	Bristlebots	Vibration robots and a racing arena	Wire soldering, motors, first robots	1–2
4	Punk Console	Two-555 noise synth in a tin	ICs, sockets, pots, audio	3
5	Line Follower	Analog line-following robot, no code	Sensors, comparators, MOSFETs	4–5
6	Etch a Board	Our own PCB (a Punk Console v2)	KiCad, toner transfer, etching	3–4
7	Bench Supply	Adjustable CC/CV lab supply	Regulators, current limiting, heat	4–5
8	Build a Scope	DSO138 kit oscilloscope (+ Pico scope)	Seeing signals, calibration	3–4
9	Microcontrollers and Sensors	Pico: songs, motion alarm, ultrasonic ruler, servo, LCD, Sentry	Programming, PWM, I2C, sensors	6–8
10	Servo Puppeteer	555 servo tester, then pot-controlled servos with record and playback, then a waldo for the quadruped leg	Servo signals, ADC, kinematics	4–6
11	Bluetooth Speaker	Battery ESP32 stereo speaker in a wood box	Digital audio, Li-ion, enclosures, SMD	6–8
12	Radio Remote	SDR safari, the DTMF → smart plug bridge, a radio-controlled robot	SDR, DTMF, radio rules	5–6
13	License + Fox Hunt	Technician licenses, a tape-measure Yagi, a fox transmitter	RF, direction finding, FCC rules	6+
14	Quadruped	Finish the legv2 walking robot (a separate family repo, not public yet)	Linkages, calibration, gaits	6+
15	Radio Capstone	Kit HF transceiver or a homebrew SA818 handheld	Transceivers, test equipment	6–10
16	Micro RC Cars	LEGO Technic RC car per kid (rack-and-pinion steering, differential) with a wireless charging garage, a homebuilt controller, lights, a distance sensor, a camera, and self-driving	ESP-NOW, power paths, Qi charging, modular design	10–14

The map

Arrows mean "teaches skills used by". Robots are orange, test gear is green, radio is blue.

flowchart TD
    U0[0 Workshop] --> U1[1 First Light]
    U1 --> U2[2 Crystal Radio]
    U1 --> U3[3 Bristlebots]
    U1 --> U4[4 Punk Console]
    U3 --> U5[5 Line Follower]
    U4 --> U5
    U4 --> U6[6 Etch a Board]
    U6 --> U7[7 Bench Supply]
    U7 --> U8[8 Build a Scope]
    U4 --> U8
    U7 --> U9[9 Microcontrollers<br/>+ Sensors]
    U9 --> U10[10 Servo Puppeteer]
    U9 --> U11[11 Bluetooth Speaker]
    U7 --> U11
    U9 --> U12[12 Radio Remote]
    U5 --> U12
    U2 --> U13[13 License + Fox Hunt]
    U12 --> U13
    U10 --> U14[14 Quadruped]
    U5 --> U14
    U12 --> U14
    U13 --> U15[15 Radio Capstone]
    U8 --> U15
    U9 --> U16[16 Micro RC Cars]
    U10 --> U16
    U11 --> U16
    U5 --> U16

    classDef robot fill:#ffe0c2,stroke:#d9822b,color:#000
    classDef gear fill:#d5f5d5,stroke:#3c9a3c,color:#000
    classDef radio fill:#d6e6ff,stroke:#3a6fc4,color:#000
    class U3,U5,U10,U14,U16 robot
    class U7,U8 gear
    class U2,U12,U13,U15 radio

Threads that run through the course:

• Robots:
• Bristlebots (3)
• Line follower (5)
• Sentry (9)
• Servo puppets (10)
• Radio-controlled robot (12)
• The quadruped, which walks and gets radio control (14)
• RC cars that charge themselves and drive themselves (16)
• The 555 timer: blinker-style (1), synth (4), PWM for the line follower (5), servo tester (10).
• Radio: crystal radio (2), SDR and the DTMF bridge (12), licenses and the fox hunt (13), a radio we built (15).

Diagrams

Schematics are drawn in Python with schemdraw and committed as SVG next to the unit (units/NN-*/<name>.py → <name>.svg), so they render on GitHub and in VS Code.

Block diagrams and flows are Mermaid code blocks, which GitHub renders natively.

To regenerate every schematic after editing a .py:

python3 -m venv .venv && .venv/bin/pip install -r requirements.txt   # once
tools/build_diagrams.sh

Layout

README.md               this file
resources.md            books, kits, sites, suppliers
00-workshop/            bench setup, tool list, safety rules, skill ladder
units/NN-name/          one folder per unit: README.md, schematics (.py → .svg), code/, firmware/
templates/              unit template and build-log template
tools/                  diagram build and render-check scripts

Status

• [ ] 0 Workshop set up
• [ ] 1 First Light
• [ ] 2 Crystal Radio
• [ ] 3 Bristlebots
• [ ] 4 Punk Console
• [ ] 5 Line Follower
• [ ] 6 Etch a Board
• [ ] 7 Bench Supply
• [ ] 8 Build a Scope
• [ ] 9 Microcontrollers and Sensors
• [ ] 10 Servo Puppeteer
• [ ] 11 Bluetooth Speaker
• [ ] 12 Radio Remote (the parent's DTMF bridge already works: ~/infra/radio)
• [ ] 13 License + Fox Hunt
• [ ] 14 Quadruped (already in progress in ~/legv2)
• [ ] 15 Radio Capstone
• [ ] 16 Micro RC Cars (can start any time after Unit 11)