Glenn Reynolds put out a call to his readers for introductory texts on electronics, aimed especially at children.
This gives me the chance to recommend my favorite text on any subject [emailed to Reynolds, but a day late. Don't know if he'll get around to posting it.]
Stuart Hoenig and Leland Payne, How to Build & Use Electronic Devices Without Frustration, Panic, Mountains of Money, or an Engineering Degree
A very gentle introduction centered on wonderful little doodads called op amps, which vastly simplify the design of just about anything that handles analog signals. This was written just after IC op amps became widely and cheaply available at Radio Shack. Many chapters on various kinds of sensors, including some biomedical stuff.There’s a chapter on discrete devices, such as naked transistors, “if you must use them”.
There’s a brief intro to digital interfacing, but this was before PCs became widely available, so the digital world gets very short shrift — and this is, in my opinion, a good thing. It trains you to deal with the real signals, the actual measurements. Digital should properly only be introduced after you have a solid grounding in analog. [Insert obvious CRU snark.]
HtBaUEDWFPMoMoaED is shamefully out of print, but many used copies are available. They shouldn’t be; they should all be grabbed up and militantly hoarded.
Hoenig and Payne need to either authorize a reprinting, or just put it on line. Yeah, it’s a bit out of date, but everything here still works.
This is my wilderness backpacking electronics text (you never know when you may need to fabricate a telemetry pack from a handful of bark, pebbles, and bear droppings) because it’s much smaller and lighter than the rightfully famous Art of Electronics, which is my preferred desktop reference as well, but which would be pretty heavy slogging for any but a fairly advanced teen.
Tags: Art of Electronics, How to Build & Use Electronic Devices Without Frustration Panic Mountains of Money or an Engineering Degree, Stuart Hoenig