Electronics
Electronics
Electronics are an important area for makers, particularly if you are interested in making devices that can sense the world around them, and respond in dynamic ways. A basic understanding of the underlying physics is helpful, along with some practice in circuit design, and some coding to define the behavior of your devices.
While some hardware will eventually be needed, there are free simulators out there to help you get started before your parts come in, or before you decide to even invest in specific parts or tools.
Electrical Engineering Principles
Before tackling electronics projects, it can be helpful to learn (or review) some of the principles of electrical engineering that these projects rely on. In particular, you should know about the quantities of current, voltage, and power. We recommend watching the first two units of Khan Academy's electrical engineering section:
Introduction to Electrical Engineering
You can go further into the other units as well, if they apply to you, but these two will give a good introduction for what you will likely need.
Circuits and Microcontrollers
Many electronics projects begin with a microcontroller board, which includes integrated circuit hardware, with supporting software that allows you to control its behavior. One popular platform is the Arduino series, with the Arduino Uno (below) being a common starter board.
Other popular platforms include the Adafruit Feather (particularly for wearable applications given its smaller form factor) or the Raspberry Pi. Technically, the Pi is a full-blown Linux computer and far more powerful than the other options here, but its use with electronics can be similar because of its General Purpose Input/Output (GPIO) pins, making the interfacing akin to the I/O pins on the other boards.
Starter kits exist for each of these ecosystems of boards, and many of the more basic components are interchangeable. But before you decide to go buy one of these starter kits, it may be helpful to work with a simulator first.
Tinkercad has an electronics section that allows you to try out different kinds of circuit designs before physically building them. We recommend completing the introductory sections (Start Simulating through Series and Parallel Circuits), and then the Arduino-specific sections (including any guided projects) that are most relevant to your project. You will need an account to access Tinkercad, but these can be created for free.
Additional potentially helpful resources include
Adafruit and Sparkfun are retailers for maker products that you may eventually want to buy from.