On Fri, 19 Dec 2008 11:41:08 +0000, stuart noble wrote:

For one of my birthdays (probably age 5 or 6), my dad went to somewhere
like Proops or Henrys and bought half a dozen battery bulbs and
holders, a doorbell and a door buzzer, some diodes, some switches and
push buttons, wire and strippers, and a 4.5V battery.

So, what cheap goodies would you put in the box today if you wanted to
introduce a child to electronics etc?

Just the same stuff, the basics haven't changed.

I'm sure most kids would be fascinated

They are and are taught simple series/parallel light bulbs at primary
school. I certainly wasn't, I don't think I was taught anything that could
be even loosely described as "electronics" at school.

but, if your dad doesn't know what a diode is, what chance do you have?
:-)

Getting given the box of interesting bits is the problem but once you have
them books or the web will give the information required to play with the
bits and experiment.

--
Cheers
Dave.