Electron Lab: electronics and robotics for kids

Electron Lab teaches electronics, circuits, microcontrollers and robotics to children aged about 10 to 15, in the browser.

Learners build real circuits on a simulated breadboard, program an Arduino, a BBC micro:bit, an ESP32 and a Raspberry Pi Pico with blocks, wire sensors and motors, then build a robot and program it to drive and to fight in a sumo arena. There are 17 levels and 106 missions, with hints, “Why?” help and quizzes, plus 13 free labs, and 5 everyday machines to open up in 3D (a DC motor, speaker, doorbell, electric toothbrush and solar garden light). Nothing to install, and no hardware needed; a parts list helps anyone who wants the real parts on a desk.

For children (about 10 to 15), parents, schools, and robotics and coding centres. Teachers make a school, add classes and learners, and see their progress. Learners in a class sign in with a class code and a picture password, with no email; at home, a parent can give each child a family code and a picture password for their own device.

The labs and Level 1 are free with no account, and Levels 2 and 3 and the micro:bit side quest with a free account, which also saves work across devices. The Family plan, or a school or centre’s plan, opens every level. Made by Version2 Apps.

Levels

  1. Electricity basics: Build real circuits: loops, LEDs, motors, conductors and insulators, series and parallel, battery packs, and keeping them safe.
  2. Measure it: Read and build from circuit diagrams, then measure your circuits with a multimeter: voltage, current, and Ohm’s law, worked out from your own readings.
  3. Circuits that sense: Two resistors share the push: voltage dividers, a light sensor, dimmers and paths side by side, diodes and capacitors. Circuits that react, with no code.
  4. Switches that think: Switches that make decisions: AND and OR, then the transistor, a switch worked by electricity, and a peek at the chip built from millions of them.
  5. Program an Arduino: Give your circuits a brain: meet the Arduino Uno, write your first program from blocks, then wire lights of your own and program them.
  6. Inputs and decisions: Buttons and sensors: read a pin, let the program decide with if and else, fade a light, see it on the scope and build a night-light.
  7. Arduino sensors: Servos, knobs, temperature, motion, distance and colour: real modules wired to an Arduino.
  8. Motors and drivers: Why a pin can’t run a motor, the H-bridge motor driver, speed with PWM, and two motors steering like a robot.
  9. Build a robot: Put your circuit in a robot body, then drive it: straight, round a corner, pushing a box, and finding things with sensors.
  10. Robot arena: Sumo matches against five practice robots, from easy to champion. Tune your body and your program to win.
  11. BBC micro:bit (optional): Write your first programs on the micro:bit schools use: its lights, buttons, tilt, temperature and sounds.
  12. Inside a microcontroller (optional): The ATmega328P, the chip on an Arduino Uno: memory that forgets, its heartbeat, its 28 legs and interrupts.
  13. Drive a mission robot (optional): A robot with a hub for a brain: its lights and beeps, driving exact distances, turning, and turning by the gyro.
  14. Robots that sense (optional): Stop before a wall, read colours on the mat, follow a line, then run a whole mission against the clock.
  15. Meet your EKAM (optional): Tour the Uniko EKAM in 3D, program its lights, buttons and light sensor, upload to the real board, and build a night-light for your room.
  16. EKAM add-ons (optional): Plug a servo and a knob into the headers, program them, the microphone and the TV remote, charge the battery safely, and build a remote-controlled servo.
  17. Energy and power (optional): Power in watts, electricity from sunlight, electromagnets, a generator you crank, AC and DC, and why an LED wastes less than a bulb.

Every mission is listed on the curriculum page. More: overview, a guide for AI agents.