Great contest. My best electronic gift wasn't exactly an electronic item, but a full course on microprocessors from the old  McGraw Hill NRI school. My first use of breadboards. I see lots of pics from folks here of their similar favs. Mine is still stuck in a box somewhere due to a recent move, so no pics from me today. That course helped me snag a few jobs to get started in the IT industry that ended up being my career  for many years. I was often the only person in an IT department where I worked who could trace faults down to chip level because of that course. Done all online. One of the first full courses I think to be produced for that venue back in the early 80s. I went from taking my old transistor radios I took apart as a kid and not understanding any of the parts to knowing how they actually worked. Thanks NRI.

I was grown up with my  maternal grandparents as my parents were both gov servants. My grandpa was an electronics hobbyist and used to buy a lots of L board Radio kits from Delhi by just sending a letter and money order via post. Today I am an Electronics Engineer because of him and the experiments he used to do.

Me and my brother used to watch him soldering kits and making radio receivers out of simple L board kits and components that was locally available. After some years he lost his vision power and we already had got the skill to help him out. He did gave us many radios to listen to the shortwave station.

Eventually I went to Polytechnic for Diploma in Electronics and made a simple RF signal generator to test radio receivers for tuning with the kits my grandpaa built. He was very happy. He had a dream to make a simple transmitter for FM but never materialized because lack of technical knowledge on that. I went for B.Tech in 2008 and in my final year 2010 I built a FM transmitter at my colege lab which worked to a good distance. I had a plan to show that to grandpaa in holidays but till I could get back to home, he left for heaven. I still have his soldering iron, L board kits, Radio Gang Capacitor for tuning. And today I am an amateur radio operator with call sign VU3GDP and have built many transceiver myself, but what I miss is his presence and blessings that brought me to this part of life.

I wish I could show him my radios and say, see paa... Now I can talk to the entire world with shortwave.

Miss you !!

The best gift I ever received was a Screwdriver set for my 12th birthday.

It was a simple kit with just 4 interchangeable screw bits i.e. 2 philips head and 2 flat heads.

It was the perfect gift for me as I could now open whatever I wanted.

One fine afternoon I decided to open an electric mosquito racket just for the fun of it. I took it apart and while browsing through the components i zapped myself. That shock ignited a spark in my brain. I decided to re-engineer the racket into a tazer. I took apart the net section of the racket, used some old nails as leads and glued it to the end of the handle. And I had a tazer ready.

The sad part of the story is my mom found out what I had done and thought it was dangerous as I would zap my family members. My invention ended in the trash can that evening. And while disposing it my mother zapped herself.

I certainly hope so! I've dropped a few hints and added the Longer Orange 10 to my Amazon wish list. I'm hoping that's what I'm getting! (They made a big noise about NOT being able to get that for me...methinks they doth protest too much!)

I've watched videos on YouTube where a guy builds miniature engines using a tabletop lathe. That would be pretty sweet!

maybe a resin based printer

I can't wait to know either ....maybe a metal lathe or mill if you are interested in such things?

The greatest gift I've ever received was given to me just last year; the family bought me a 3D printer for Christmas. It's an Ender 3, with a Pi 3B+ running Octoprint. There's just something mesmerizing about watching that little nozzle lay down molten plastic, later by later, to bring to life anything my mind can imagine. I've printed useful things (knobs, gears, handles.) I've printed toys (figurines, display models, props.) I've even managed to sell some of my prints to make a little side money!

They tell me they've gone one better this year... can't wait to see how!

One really cool thing about that is those 2 distros. Really handy to have all that stuff preinstalled, and the raspbian for robots tools all work with any pi with the standard 9685 based 16 channel servo drivers.

Hi All,

The best electronics gift that I ever received is the one that Santa is bringing to me this year -- The GoPiGo3 Robot Base Kit:

GoPiGo3 is a Raspberry Pi -based complete kit to build your own robot car.  It can be programmed in Bloxter, a Scratch-like block programming language for beginners. Or, it can be programmed in Python, for intermediate and advanced projects.  The GoPiGo3 is one of a line of kits from Dexter Industries that focus on classroom projects for teaching students at many levels.  As a university instructor, I am hoping that I might include some projects in one of my classes someday soon.  But, my short term focus is to PLAY and LEARN for my own benefit. This is a gift from Santa after all.

When deciding on which robot kit to order, two main considerations for me were that it could be programmed in Python and that it was based on the Raspberry Pi.  Python is important to me because I am teaching Python to my students.  So, I invest most of my own development effort into solutions and that are Python-based, like Django and PySpark.

The GoPiGo3 promotional material says that it will run on most (if not all) Raspberry Pi computers.  This is great for me, because I have a lot of them.  Since 2012, I have been ordering each new model of Raspberry Pi from Newark/Element14 when first announced.  Then, I have waited eagerly for my new unit to ship. I am going to use one of my Raspberry Pi 3 B+ units in my first assembly of the robot kit.  Later, I'll begin testing the robot kit with the full series of my older Pi's.  I know that they are in a drawer around here somewhere.

My latest work-related Raspberry Pi project is building an 8-node cluster of Raspberry Pi 4s powered by the Raspberry Pi POE Hat.  I will be using it to implement a demonstration-grade Apache Spark cluster.  Thanks to Newark/Element14, I have all of the parts sitting in my office.  As soon as I finish my grading for the fall semester, I am going to start the assembly.

Yes, the GoPiGo3 does qualify as a gift even though I ordered it myself.  It is coming from Santa after all.  I am now in the third phase of Santa.  In the first phase, you believe in Santa.  In the second phase, you recover from your disappointment about Santa by helping Santa.  In this third phase, you are Santa.

Yes, this does qualify as "received" because it is ordered, paid, and expected to arrive by Christmas.  I am already dreaming about assembling the kit on Christmas day and entertaining the family with my new toy.  I was so excited yesterday, that I downloaded the two operating system choices (DexterOS and Raspbian for Robots) and flashed the images to micro SD cards.  I am ready to go for Christmas morning.  For those of you who are curious as to why I am waiting till then, you should know that Mrs. Santa does not allow presents to be opened early in our house.  This is a hard and fast Santa rule.

I hope that you all enjoy your holidays.

Best Regards,

Santa Kevin