EEVblog #1135 - Science Fair 200-in-1 with Sagan

Sagan builds a rain detector circuit with Dave's original Science Fair Tandy / Radio Shack 200-in-1 electronics projects kit from the 1980's, and testing it using Dave's first multimeter!

Watch Sagan soldering for the first time!

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[MickMake]

It has started...
There’s no turning back now.

[jubronaljoan]

Sagan is a lucky kid to have a dad like you mate.

[finkelmana]

In his teens, Sagan will dabble in boutique audio cables to piss off his dad

[MakerofThingss]

Sagan is 7 now?! Wow I've been watching your channel for a long time!

[karolferet]

I'm afraid Sagan understands electronics better than me

[neilfraser]

I had that exact same kit, as well as the 150 and 50 you showed earlier. This one was my favorite by far. So many good times building circuits projects. Looks like Sagan is enjoying it. Thanks for the trip down memory lane!

[Skyfox]

Awesome! I have that exact kit from when my brother and I were kids. I also have the 60-in-1 kit. Some years ago I posted a good quality scan of the 200-in-1 manual to the forum, but I see in the post for this episode, Tandy has posted a link to a bigger version.
Hey Dave, I have to say, you're a really good dad. You're patient, you teach rather than scold, and you show a genuine interest in spending time with your kids and helping them learn new things. A lot of other dads could learn a lot from you. In another 20 years, I could see Sagan starting to take over the channel...EEVblog, The Next Generation.

[CookingWithCows]

it looks like Sagan has made great progress from just holding his fingers up to show how old he is. Great job, nice to see him so interested and outgoing

[AldarisGoldfish]

I had one of these kits when I was about his age as well! I had been playing with electrical things since I was about 5, but this kit really cemented my love of the hobby. Great moments to have with your young fella.

[jenniferlachance]

What a sweet boy! He brought many smiles to my face!! Thank you for sharing!

[TehMG]

I learned electronics as a kid on the EXACT SAME projects kit!!! Very good kit, with an easy to read very detailed manual that progressively teaches you increasingly complex circuits. Lots of fun too and lots of possibilities beyond the 200 circuits in the book. Once I was done them all I started combining circuits, and eventually coming up with my own circuits.

[spokehedz]

Brought a nostalgia tear to my eye, watching the little dude mess about with the wires... Lots of good memories pulled from the long term storage of me being about that age... Thanks Dave. (who could thumbs down this... Probably some bitter RadioShack investors no doubt.)

[scottbaileyExplores]

Like father like son. Nice to be remembered how clever we are as small children. Nice one Dave.

[deepmystic]

AHH man good to see you with your little one, you are a great role model and I am forever thankful for all the stuff I have learnt from you!

[HVM_fi]

This is getting out of hand! Now, there are two of them!

[davidcole]

Dave,

Watching you and Sagan work together and his joy at discovery, it brought a lump to my throat and a tear to my eye. i remembered my first science/electronics kit and working w/ my dad to do the "experiments" .
Somewhere between about 1958 and 1961 (I was born at the end of 1954), my dad got a kit for electrical learning; it had a "D" size carbon-zinc cell, wire, light bulbs, nuts and screws (around #6-32 size), some spring brass strips, a fiber tube, a nail, some colored plastic dome lenses for the lamps, and an injection molded plastic "breadboard" to build simple circuits with single and multi-positiion switches , an electromagnet, a solenoid, lamp selectors and other simple demonstrations.
A few years later it was a Bakelite "Heathkit" 5-tube AM AC/DC table radio, and from there on I was hooked for life on electronics.

Thanks for that video and the warm memories it brought me back to.

Cheers,
Dave C.
Lubbock, TX., USA

[seancsnm]

You have a smart kid in the making. Some hope yet remains for the future. I got a kit like this as a kid but wasn't able to figure the harder concepts out until college. And it was in college that I discovered that I could have learned them at a much younger age.

[breakbumper]

I remember a similar kit back in the early 90s. Absolutely heart warming to introduce your kid to this. Nice one!

[tubelife]

Holey Blast From The Past!!! That was the first electronics kit I ever destroyed. I think I got mine in 1981... Oh Man, I had forgotten all about this kit. Thanks Dave, now I remember my parents did love me! :))

[BoltClevo]

I lusted after these kits as a kid. I read the 1977 Tandy catalogue a billion times and just had to know what all the components did so I went and got library books out on the subject. I learnt a lot without actually doing anything practical. Then one day I found $20 under an old mower in the junk pile at the local mower shop. I told the owner and he let me keep the money so I ripped down to Tandy under Sundale Shopping Centre on the Gold Coast and bought $20 worth of transistors, diodes, resistors, capacitors, battery clips, blah blah blah. It's amazing how expensive the components were in the day. I think you'd get 100 times as much these days.