Make: Electronics: Learning by Discovery: A hands-on primer for the new electronics enthusiast 3rd Edition

Excellent book. I took electronics in high school but wanted a refresher - and overall wish I'd listened better. :-)Platt's approach and writing style are excellent. There are a couple mistakes in the book so it is worthwhile to check out the Errata on the O'Reilly web page for the book.My only criticism is that Experiment 17 (Intrusion Alarm), while good practice and theory, is actually quite a lot of effort for a very underwhelming result. It's left to the reader to integrate a tone circuit - on a separate breadboard. You can use something like the single 555 tone in experiment 16 or a transistor version such as experiment 11. The information is all in the book to do this, but there's a bit of a handwave on this in experiment 17. ("Add audio output here")And even having done that, you are totally on your own for sensors or stand-ins for the sensors. The kits for the book don't include any reed sensors. And if you purchased the parts kits, you only have one 555 beyond the three needed for exp 17 and just a single breadboard.Additionally, to see this project all the way through, you need at least a stripboard style perf board - again, not included in the kits. (I realize the author doesn't create the kits, but he mentions that these optional parts won't be included so it wasn't an unknown.)I mean, you don't HAVE to solder it. And you can use push buttons to stand in for sensors, and you can figure out the audio alarm part, possibly using the lower part of the perf board...but this project stands out as sort of the least complete and ready to go end-to-end project in the book.To be honest, even if he'd said "I'm leaving out a few details that you should be able to figure out at this point" (which is true) would make it "fit" more in the spirit of the book.To be fair to this project, I do appreciate the sort of conversational "working it out" process that we see, as if we are just in the room with Platt as he works through it. That's great stuff.

I enjoy all of the Make books. They are for everyone from beginner to pro. I am old school and like holding and reading. I like to have reference material to lay in front of me if I need it rather than going to a website or forum. Books are very informative, packed with information and easy to find topics and read. Keep up the great work!

Back when I started taking classes for electronics way back when, this is the book I wish I had. The classes I took went the traditional way of teaching the theory, and offering the occasional lab to reinforce the lesson. This book takes the opposite approach in that it teaches electronics from a very practical "hands-on" approach and then explains the theory behind what is going on in about as non-intimidating a manner as is possible. Personally I'm a kinesthetic learner, that is I learn best by doing, so this is the sort of book made for someone like me. The author in fact expects the reader to make mistakes and "smoke" components as he feels that is one way to learn, and it works.The math is minimal, and as long as the reader can do basic functions (add, subtract, multiply, divide), they will be fine. Likewise, this doesn't cover much in the way of theory, no Kirchoff's Law, Thevenin's Theorem, etc.It's just a very basic primer with the idea of exposing the reader/user to electronics on a functional/practical level, see if they like it, and the idea is to move on from there. For those who have been in the field a long time, obviously understanding the theory is indeed very important, and there are good texts available for doing that. Again, I emphasize that this isn't the goal of this book however... it's made for a rank beginner with no knowledge and just a curiosity to learn. Taken from that perspective, this book is a success!Highly recommended!

For many years I have been interested in learning electronics, and I have purchased what feels like over a dozen different books, kits or online courses. The material in nearly all of them were written by engineers and it felt like for engineers. Just could not get into them. Additionally, many of the other kits and courses force your to learn Arduios, which I am not against at a future date, but for right now, I want to understand the basics of schematics and working with breadboards. I want to learn the components, what they do and how to plan to use them. I want instruction using a basic multi-meter. Happy to learn about Arduino's later. Just not what I am still wrapping my mind around the basics.Determined, I decided to just start buying all of the beginner books out there until I found an instructor whose style resonated with me. THIS IS THE BOOK! Just WOW! Such clarity and simplicity to understand. Charles Platt clearly understands how to take a complex subject matter and make it palpable for a beginner like me. That is also not to say his understanding is surface level, he has a very DEEP understanding of electronics and has many additional books on the subject.Suffice it to say, I study his book EVERY MORNING now and am LOVING it. There are some things I need to re-read, but I definitely am having much more success with Make:Electronics 3rd Edition. (Always get the latest editions!)Also, there is an electronics component kit that comes with this book. I highly, HIGHLY recommend getting this kit as well, so you can physically create the breadboards and learn hands on as you go. You will be at a huge learning disadvantage if you do not do these experiments.Thank you Charles Platt! As a teacher myself, I appreciate the effort you have taken to make this difficult subject matter so accessible- I appreciate you!

They're right, this is the best way to learn, by doing. Not just plain electronics but also new and improved devices in little kits to show how they work and how to understand what's happening. Thick book, lots of information.

It was a good book to look through and read.

Love it!