I feel extraordinarily fortunate to say most of the teachers I had between K-12 would go out of there way to donate their time or finances to help or provide opportunities to a student. So, I couldn't pick just one.

Today, I believe a USB oscilloscope should be an essential teaching tool along with a laptop and projector to perform live experiments with sound or light, etc...

I have no use for the prizes, but would be thrilled if you sent them to https://trinityrobotcontest.org/  in my name, which my high school teacher at the time had developed their curriculum around many years ago. They used to have photos dating back to the early nineties... perhaps on the internet archive.

I miss:

• Iron filings to make magnetic field lines visible.
• Enameled wire and some magnets
• Reed switch and hall effect sensor

The professors who have left their mark on my way of thinking are two physics professors. The first is Professor Costa, who, in high school, taught me to always look at the nature around me to try to understand what happens every day of our daily life. His lessons were based on experiments and observations of natural phenomena. At the University of Engineering, I then met Professor Falciglia who taught me to solve the most complex problems by analyzing well the forces involved and breaking them down into simpler problems. I remember the accuracy of the lessons and his simple and rigorous way of solving the exercises.

As for the tools for STEM, to those proposed by you, I would add a good soldering iron.

As devices, I would add a Feather Huzzah, a truly exciting and versatile board that, thanks to WiFi, also allows older students to create simple home automation and IoT applications and to interface easily with their smartphones.

I am also pleased to see that, even in 2021, my beloved NE555 is very much appreciated. Thanks to him I built timers, oscillators, led light games, modulators of all kinds ...

There was a professor who marked me positively more than others at the university. He gave the theoretical part and the practical part of some classes. I still remember the first job of one of these classes, which was to design a dc/dc converter. If we had a question, he would take a blank sheet of paper, a pen and explain concepts such as continuous and discontinuous mode, duty cycle, etc. and it showed the way of how we could overcome the difficulties, without giving the final answer. Today it's true that I don't remember half of it and if I need it, I select and buy an IC. However I know that if I need it, I have the basic knowledge to understand and solve any problem.

As for missing tools, a soldering iron and tweezers are essential.

Growing up without a father, your dad sounds like a character from the Norman Rockwell picture of dad's that I created in my head.

Missing components:

The sensors in the micro:bit help round out the list nicely. A force sensor might also be interesting, maybe a force sensitive resistor. I also like the servo motor suggestion.

For components perhaps some transistors, diodes, a regulator, and a counter chip.

Missing Electronics Tools:

side cutter, needle nose pliers, tweezers, soldering iron

Teacher

I never really had a favorite prof, I was an invisible student, but the best course I ever took was static mechanics. It taught me the general methods of engineering problem solving - like how to break a problem down into smaller problems that are easier to solve.

As far as a favorite teacher goes, I would have to say my Dad - he taught me how the world worked, how to build a lot of things, how to use tools and firmly planted the maker bug in me.

I had a lot of great teachers, but my favorite was Prof. Peck, who taught a circuits class that covered resistors, capacitors, and inductors (transistors and diodes were a later class). He was just amazing at explaining everything. I had taken other circuits classes and labs before that, but I never really got it. Prof Peck's class kind of opened my eyes, and every other class after that was much easier to understand.

Sometimes, it just takes someone to explain things to you in a certain way and then things click!

One very memorable teacher was my 7th grade science teacher, nicknamed TNT, Terry Norman Trees.

He was a younger teacher, enthusiastic, happy, silly at times, made science class fun, relevant and always interesting.

I wanted to learn more.  I was eager to learn more, and I felt I could be successful to learn more

about levers, torques,lifting things, batteries and voltages, power  etc..

My favorite teacher prior to university was Mr. Perry Regier who taught physics and chemistry at my high school.  There are two things I distinctly remember.  First, Mr. Regier did lots of demonstrations where we would gather around the lab table at the front of the classroom.  The physics experiments included the frequency of pendulums, the mechanical advantage of different mechanisms, acceleration under gravity, and so on.  Second, we learned the formulas for the item under study and this being the 1960s there was a large classroom slide rule visible from the back of the room hanging over the blackboard.  These slide rules were huge!  Often Mr. Regier would demonstrate the calculation and sometimes a student would be called to come up and perform a calculation.

Source:  Pickett Teaching Guide for Slide Rule Instruction, ca 1960

The fiddling about before doing the experiments was minimal and to this day I get a rush when my calculations and designs match observed behavior  

I presume this is targeted towards high school level students who have yet to determine a course of study for college.  But it is possible to get started earlier than that and I have found the Lego Wedo system works well with children as young as seven.  The advantages include:

• many children already enjoy Lego
• instructions are visual and students get hands-on immediately
• feedback in the programming phase is immediate

• excellent curriculum and teaching material is available online

The teaching material associated with the kit is at least as important as the kit itself.  An example of a very good product is the TI Robotics System Learning Kit which Newark carries.  For many students having the material linked to something they find interesting like robots, drones, or environmental monitoring could be motivating and for a first course, it might be good to provide structure in that regard.  Computer modeling is very important these days and learning to use MATLAB, Numpy, and other such tools would be useful.

At a high level:

• Course objective will determine materials and tools
• Get students involved and hands-on quickly
• Teach age-appropriate theory
• Show real-world application

(no need to consider me for prizes :-)

1) Engineers, tell us about your favorite teacher, and why they were your favorite

Mr Radu, the instructor that oversaw lab work during my Electronic Engineering Technology diploma program.

I recall how he forced me to find my own answers? Why are you taking that measurement? What do you expect to find? How will that influence your next step? He would shake his head, if he asked you questions and you couldn't respond. I remember being frustrated because my FM radio circuit was not working. His responses to my questions only prompted me to develop a methodology to troubleshoot. He would lead you to discover your own answers.

Mr. Radu was a small, unassuming man. He never raised his voice or showed frustration. I recall talking to him about building a audio amplifier with dual 250Watt outputs, His response "You want to cook a chicken? Why so much power?"

As my courses wrapped up, he shared with me some of his knowledge that influenced my response to an employers job offer. I did get the job and a wonderful career from it.

During my careers, I did a lot of mentoring. New hires, junior individuals or summer students, I had no problem taking them on to support projects I was working on. When I retired three individuals spoke to me during my retirement function, expressing how much they learned working with me. "You never told us anything. You just asked questions and pointed us in the direction to get the answers. I can install a Linux operating system (O/S), slice drives, allocate memory, configure devices and make it secure without effort because of your questions. Having to reload the O/S after failing  to respond to a question was frustrating. Why didn't you ask me the question before I started the install?" I guess I suffer from the curse of Mr. Radu:)

2) What item are we missing

Where is the soldering iron?

The item stands out for me because I'm hoping to have the Physical Computer Club members use them this year. They have been dabbling with SBC and microcontrollers for the past year. I'm thinking a printed circuit board they can mount components to and create a working circuit would be something they would enjoy.