On Wed, 03 Nov 2004 23:22:34 +0000, John Stumbles
wrote:

Can anyone point me in the direction of books or plans for making small
model boats, either electric or sail, point + shoot or r/c, suitable for
an 11 year old without a lot of tools or previous experience? Our local
model shop is mostly full of big boys' toys costing £00s. Oh yes, did I
say I want stuff he can build on a budget of 2/6d :-)

And any resources for supplies? Mail/internet order?

I have some ideas based on what I did when I was a kid, but I think it
would help if he had plans with clear instructions so he can make stuff
when I'm not around.

I'm also interested in electronic 'makes' he could have a go at (not for
r/c for models - that's probably a bit ambitious yet!). He has made an
audio oscillator from one kit but it just said connect this component
here to that one there without even a cct diagram (had to trace that out
myself to find out what was going wrong when it didn't work). Something
that explains how the circuits work as well as showing how to make them
would be good.

tia

Boats and plans are from here. But simplicity does not really go with
them

http://www.hobbies-dereham.co.uk/hob... dept%5Fid=39

As for the electronics what you want is one of those boxed electronics
kit things. A rectangular box with all the componenents on a board
inside and a large book with "experiments" to make. Some of them got
very sophisticated. Last one I saw was from Tandy and amused my kids
(and me for years). Sadly Tandy are defunct.