I’m pleased to see that The Maker Store is now carrying a few of the Gakken kits. Gakken is a company in Japan which makes a whole bunch of stuff, including their line of “Sophisticated Science Kits for Adults”. I love this line of products because they focus on adult kit makers, a market which is sorely underserved.

Here are a couple of them:

Vacuum Tube Radio Kit

This great kit allows you to put together a real, functional, vacuum-tube radio! Includes a pin straightener for the vacuum tubes, a testing microphone so you can make sure everything is hooked up correctly to produce sounds, rubber feet on the fiber board to minimize “howling,” a variable condenser to allow for finer tuning, a recreation of 60-year-old circuits, and a more powerful transformer for better volume and sound quality.

Cup Phonograph

This replica kit uses the same technology that Thomas Edison used, replacing Edison’s waxed pipe and stylus with a plastic cup and a needle, but the end results are the same! You record your own voice on a plastic cup — and play it back!

The Gakken line of Adult kits are really great. A couple of years ago I picked up one of these, and it was a lot of fun to put together:

It’s a Gramophone that etches sound waves (with a needle) onto the back of a piece of plastic. They use an old CD for the plastic disk, which is really clever. The speaker code / mic is actually a plastic cup. The base is made out of very sturdy plastic. It’s not cheap feeling at all. 

Some things to keep in mind with these kits:

• The ones I’ve made require little or no electronics skills. This is either a pro or a con, depending on what you’re trying to learn. The boards are pre-populated, so you plug stuff in, but have to do no soldering.
• Instead of soldering, you will have to do some mechanical work. You’ll build the cases, have to carefully align some parts, and so on. It is not overly difficult, but best handled by an adult or a child with good mechanical experience.
• The kits do not require any speciality hand tools. If I recall correctly, the only tool I needed for the Gramophone was a simple regular (slotted) screwdriver.
• The cases are made of high quality plastic. They look pretty nice, but not quite as nice as the photos. Regardless, they will look good on your mantle.
• The Gramophone took me a short evening to complete. The phonograph looks to be about the same. I’m guessing that the tube radio will take a bit longer.

I’m really pleased that these kits are being made more available in the US. Previously they had been quite hard to find (mine had to be imported though a Manga vendor).

In many ways, I prefer these kits to many of the electronics ones out there. Too many of the electronics kits are just soldering exercises, where you learn very little about the circuit you are putting together. While these kits are also “assembly” exercises, they do seem to give a greater sense of accomplishment. Plus, the mechanics are simple enough that you can get a good grasp of how they work.