Helen Leigh’s first book is The Crafty Kid’s Guide to DIY Electronics, published by McGraw Hill. This entertaining, hands-on book teaches electronics and making through embroidery, origami and wearables.
“It is impossible not to love this [book] and the world it opens up to young people … It’s just beautiful, isn’t it? I know we’re supposed to be objective assessors of things on this show but sometimes things happen where you think ‘no, this is just really great’.”
BBC Click
The Crafty Kid’s Guide to DIY Electronics helps you create awesome DIY electronics projects using fabric, paper, and craft―no coding or electronics knowledge needed! This fun guide features 20 creative and quirky projects that bridge the gap between electronics and craft. Each hands-on project builds electronics and craft skills in a fun way, using cheap, readily available electronics and craft materials―conductive thread, sewable LEDs, copper tape, small motors, and simple sensors.
Designed to get children involved with electronics, The Crafty Kid’s Guide to DIY Electronics is divided into sections focusing on paper circuits, soft circuits, wearables, and robotic creatures. The projects are ideal for family making and crafting sessions, crafty people who want to take their creations to the next level, as well as for makers inspired by the cosplay and wearable scenes.
Helen Leigh wrote this book with the help of an advisory board of 200 girls between the ages of 7 and 14. The advisory board gave suggestions, voted on ideas and chose every single one of the 20 projects in the book from a list of over 100 ideas suggested by Helen.
If you want help developing and documenting ideas for creative technology projects, please get in touch with us to discuss your needs.
Starter tools and equipment
There is a full list of tools and materials in the book, but to get a head start on your projects I recommend buying the following things to accompany the book:
Tools
- needle nosed pliers
- sharp scissors
- needles and sewing pins
- an embroidery hoop
Materials
- craft supplies including paper, card, glue and felt
- a reel of conductive thread
- ordinary thread
- copper tape
- assorted LEDs
- one sheet of Chibitronics stickers
- one sewable vibration motor (I use Teknikio)