Transparent solderless breadboard

Education Technology Workshop
Transparent solderless breadboard

Recently I’ve been helping a friend’s 11-year-old daughter get started in electronics. The use of a solderless breadboard was counterintuitive to her until I gave her one of these clear-cased versions, available through Solarbotics. As she puts it, “you can see where the metal is.”

14 thoughts on “Transparent solderless breadboard

  1. StayatHomeElectronics says:

    That’s great! You have found a tool that will make learning easier and more enjoyable for her.

    I think we should all take someone under our wing and show them how interesting and fun building stuff is, whether it is electronics, something mechanical, art, a sweater or whatever.

    Maybe you could start a Mentor-a-Maker program… wait, maybe I should start a Mentor-a-Maker program… :-)

  2. Becky Stern says:

    Hah, I love it. You CAN see where the metal is!

  3. Apis says:

    This is great, they should all be transparent. I remember first time I got one and was trying to figure out “where the metal is”. :)

    1. Daniel Morgan says:

      Awesome. I’m ordering one of these for myself. Thanks Sean.

    2. AndyL says:

      More than once I’ve been frustrated by a solderless breadboard that looked similar to one I was familiar with but had very subtly different configuration.

      Especially the power and ground rails.

  4. Rob Cruickshank says:

    I spend a lot of time with people who’ve never seen a breadboard before, and when I saw those for the first time, I was thrilled. Breadboarding is easy, once you get the hang of it, but it’s hardly intuitive. People vary considerably in the time that it takes them to “get it”.

  5. Solarbotics says:

    This is very timely! We had an instructable just about ready to go where we add power-indicator LEDs into the body of this breadboard. Just released it now:

    http://www.instructables.com/id/Bling-out-your-Breadboard-how-to-add-LED-power-in/

    Enjoy!

    Regards,
    Dave

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I am descended from 5,000 generations of tool-using primates. Also, I went to college and stuff. I am a long-time contributor to MAKE magazine and makezine.com. My work has also appeared in ReadyMade, c't – Magazin für Computertechnik, and The Wall Street Journal.

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