Looking for a gift, or for a way to introduce yourself to a new hobby? Read on to learn about why other electronics kits leave you intellectually unsatisfied, and how the NerdKits philosophy is implemented in our kit.

(click photo to see more projects!)

What's a NerdKit?

A NerdKit is a combination of electronic parts and wisdom, which together will teach you about digital electronics, embedded systems, and how to bridge computers with the "real world". The electronics world has changed dramatically in the past few decades. We want to make sure that it's still easy to get involved with modern technology, and to experience a challenging and rewarding hobby!

A NerdKit is appropriate for software hackers looking to branch out into electronics, and has educational material to allow even middle-schoolers and high-schoolers (ages 12+) looking for a fun challenge to learn by doing. A microcontroller is a small computer on a single chip, including processing, memory, and inputs and outputs -- see the Wikipedia page for more information.

What's the point?

We're MIT students, and when we asked ourselves what we wished we had had before coming to MIT, the answer was simple: more hands-on experience in electrical engineering and computer science (EECS). Looking around, we realized that we could provide these experiences to others in the form of NerdKits:

1. Kits for a digital generation. Decades ago, amateur radio was the home of hobbyists. Old school "100-in-one" kits are still around, but this is the digital age, and educational electronics kits haven't been updated.
2. Inexpensive enough to be unafraid to experiment. For someone just getting started, not yet possessing the confidence in their design skills, it's important that parts be cheap enough that breaking them isn't going to be a heartbreak. Others sell starter kits for $130 or more -- far too much for someone on a student budget to take the leap into a new field. Ours are much cheaper, and more importantly have easily replaceable, commodity parts. Additionally, ours include powerful parts like an LCD display, which you won't find in other starter kits.
3. Guidance to get started, with intuition and wisdom. While MIT may be known for bestowing its students with rigid mathematical analysis skills, it's also true that a significant focus in our engineering classes is on learning the intuition crucial to being a successful designer. Through our included documentation, we'll walk you through the steps of getting started.
4. The real thing! Our kits don't give you a watered-down system like our competitors. We give you a lean but powerful chip, supported by an open-source C compiler. And we help you design your circuit yourself, instead of constricting you to a fixed layout. When your skills have advanced and you're ready for more, there's a large community of amateur and professional developers on the internet.

The educational opportunities here are amazing, and we've taken this hobby, pursued it in college, and turned it into a career. But we can only imagine if we had a kit like this one when we were in high school! Most motivated middle-school students should be capable of make interesting projects with the NerdKit.

Lots of people these days have some understanding of computers and simple computer programming, but we'd like to push you further. With microcontrollers, you can touch the real world with inputs and outputs -- sensors and actuators -- some of which are included in the NerdKit, and many others which you can add yourself. And we hope you'll discover the same passion we have grown for this exciting hobby.

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Why should I get a NerdKit, instead of making my own?

You could go out and put this kit together yourself, and we expect that after you have your first NerdKit, you could build a second one after learning so much from the first. There are a few reasons why a NerdKit makes sense as a way to start:

1. Reduced shipping overhead. Instead of you piecing together single parts from multiple vendors, we're able to pool those costs over our inventory, so you waste less money on shipping.
2. A completed design (with room to grow). With our kit, you know you won't be missing any vital parts that will delay your development, since we've already figured out what's needed to build a working system.
3. Step-by-step instructions are included. The documentation we include walks you through the steps required to build a simple project. And, in contrast to other kits which just give you a set of steps to follow, we try to give you the intuition behind why those steps exist.
4. No soldering! Out of all the steps of the assembly process, newcomers to the field are most likely to cause damage to the sensitive integrated circuits when using a 700°F tool to solder joints, and soldering can also be a source of burns if one's not careful with the tool. We use solderless breadboards so you can change your design more rapidly without waiting for your soldering iron to heat up.

I'm scared to jump in.

If we can leave you with one message, it's simple: don't be afraid. The purpose of NerdKits is to reduce the cost of getting started in the field, both financially and in time required. By doing so, we make digital electronics available to a much wider population, and additionally increase the chance that you'll be successful in this endeavor.

I'm excited. How do I get started?

Pick up one of our kits!

Copyright © 2008 by the NerdKits team. Please don't redistribute our materials without our permission.