Electronic Components

🎯 What you’ll learn

• The 4-band colour code — both ways
• Resistors in series and in parallel
• Potentiometers and presets: resistors you can turn

🎬 Animated demo

Tap the colour bands to read any resistor, then join resistors in series and parallel and turn a knob to dim an LED.

🛠️ Project & application ideas

• Colour-code flash cards
• Knob-controlled LED dimmer

🎯 What you’ll learn

• How a capacitor stores charge
• Ceramic, electrolytic and super capacitors
• Charge, discharge and the time constant

🎬 Animated demo

Charge a capacitor, then watch it light an LED that slowly fades.

🛠️ Project & application ideas

• Fading LED night light
• Capacitor stopwatch race

🎯 What you’ll learn

• The one-way street for current
• Forward voltage and the silver band
• Rectifier, Schottky and Zener diodes

🎬 Animated demo

Flip the battery and see the diode block the current.

🛠️ Project & application ideas

• Reverse-battery protector
• Diode direction tester

🎯 What you’ll learn

• How LEDs make light
• Colours, legs and the LED resistor
• RGB LEDs, SMD LEDs and LED strips

🎬 Animated demo

Change the LED colour and the resistor and keep the LED safe.

🛠️ Project & application ideas

• Traffic light model
• RGB colour mixer

🎯 What you’ll learn

• NPN and PNP transistors
• A small current switching a big one
• MOSFETs and where transistors hide

🎬 Animated demo

Press a tiny button and watch a transistor switch on a motor.

🛠️ Project & application ideas

• Touch switch
• Automatic night lamp

🎯 What you’ll learn

• Push buttons, toggle, slide and rocker switches
• Momentary vs latching, NO vs NC
• SPST, SPDT and how to wire them

🎬 Animated demo

Press, flip and slide different switches and see which lamp lights.

🛠️ Project & application ideas

• Two-way lamp selector
• Secret door alarm

🎯 What you’ll learn

• How an electromagnet moves a switch
• COM, NO and NC contacts
• Driving a relay safely with a transistor and diode

🎬 Animated demo

A small coil current clicks the relay and switches a separate circuit.

🛠️ Project & application ideas

• Relay-controlled fan
• Click-click blinker

🎯 What you’ll learn

• DC and gear motors
• Servo, stepper and BLDC motors
• A dynamo: a motor turned backwards

🎬 Animated demo

Change the voltage and gears, step a stepper and spin a dynamo to light an LED.

🛠️ Project & application ideas

• Gear-motor car
• Hand-crank dynamo torch

🎯 What you’ll learn

• Cells vs batteries
• Volts, mAh and series vs parallel
• Rechargeable cells and battery safety

🎬 Animated demo

Add cells in series and parallel and watch the volts and run-time change.

🛠️ Project & application ideas

• Battery holder pack
• Run-time race

🎯 What you’ll learn

• How a solar cell turns light into electricity
• Volts, amps and watts of a panel
• Sunlight, angle and charging a battery

🎬 Animated demo

Move the sun and tilt the panel to get the most power.

🛠️ Project & application ideas

• Solar fan
• Sun-tracking test

🎯 What you’ll learn

• 7-segment displays
• 16×2 LCD and OLED screens
• LED matrices and how pixels make pictures

🎬 Animated demo

Light the segments to make any digit, then write words on a screen.

🛠️ Project & application ideas

• Digital dice
• Scrolling name badge

🎯 What you’ll learn

• Measuring volts, amps and ohms
• Continuity and diode tests
• Using a multimeter safely

🎬 Animated demo

Turn the dial and touch the probes to measure every part of a circuit.

🛠️ Project & application ideas

• Battery health checker
• Find-the-fault challenge