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One of the coolest toys I had as a kid was an "electronic projects lab" that had a bunch of components mounted on a plastic board and connected to spring terminals that could be patched together with wire.

(I attached a photo of a similar product; mine was a knock-off made in Czechoslovakia.)

Anyway - the coolest part of this was that it came with a book containing schematics for several hundred (non-trivial!) projects you could assemble right away. Just everything you need in one place, invaluable especially in the days before the internet.

A bit over 10 years ago, I wanted to give my kids the same experience, so I went with Snap Circuits - but honestly, it felt like inferior tech. Fewer components, harder to put together and keep together - and to add insult to injury, the included pamphlet mostly offered endless riffs on the same idea ("get this IC block to make siren sound A", "get this IC block make siren sound B", you get the drift).

A decade ago, you could still buy spring-terminal kits from Elenco, Ramsey, and some other brands, so I later did that. But now, looks like Snap Circuits killed them all off?

A bit of a bummer... breadboards are fine, but again, there's value in having all the parts and well-thought-out projects ideas in one place.

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