Teardown electronics with kids
Learning electronics by taking things apart.
Almost every electrician, engineer, and scientist I know loves to take things apart to see how they work. If you've got some old electronics lying around, spend an afternoon dissecting them before you throw it away. You'll be surprised how much you know about inner workings of things. And what you don't know, you can always look it up on the internet.
Safety Tips:
Remove any batteries, and don't mess with leaky batter fluid. I prefer to use rubber gloves to remove leaking batteries.
A capacitor (these typically look like grain silos in your electrical boards) can hold a small to large shock. To avoid any unpleasant shocks, you can "ground" the capacitor by touching the ends to a table, chair, or anything thing that touches the ground. This allows any residual electrical charge to move from the capacitor to the earth.
Do NOT take apart an old TV monitor (the ones in the large boxes. Flat screens are fine). The capacitors in those screens are able to hold a lethal shock. It's best not to mess them, especially around children who like to touch things.
This activity teaches:
Electronics & Engineering & STEM. Kids can pick up the basics of electronics, and identify how electricity flows through the system by following the wires. If the toy has moving parts, you can play with the pieces to see how they work and affect each other.
Curiosity. Let's face it, you might not know what every piece in the toy does. That's okay. This is the type of activity that will peak a kids interest and get them googling for the reason behind different colored wires and how a speaker/radio works. It's okay to not know, it's even better to look it up and find the answer on your own.
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