Components

Not at all. Use what your comfortable with.

Think about how much circuitry you would haft to string together to create an op-amp.

That would be a double sided board all on its own.

And technically a transistor is an IC.

Is a voltage regulator an ic?

Yes, basically, anything with more than 2 connectors and that has silicone on it is an IC.

If you don't wish to use IC's than go old school, and look into building circuits with Tubes.

But they are hard to find, and are not manufactured much any more. if at all.

Plus they use up tons of power to run.

FM radio kit:

Using tubes is just as much 'cheating' as it is to use single transistors. What is very worthwile when designing with ic's  is to read the datasheets carefully, and don't use the ic's which don't have a full-detail datasheet. Many circuits can't be built within reasonable time / cost / performance without using ic's anymore.

You can only cheat if you wrote down rules before. Please show us your rules!

Good point.

What I mean by cheating is that using components like an LED to make light, its not my creation, its a premade light.

What I mean by cheating is that using components like an LED to make light, its not my creation, its a premade light.

Just my 2 cents here. I think using already made pieces to accomplish a bigger task in a unique way is always good. For instance if you used the light to go on to indicate movement in a dog carrier to know when the dog awoke that would be interesting. See my point?

So what about using a battery or a power supply? Are those not also pre-made? Will you be cycling and use a dynamo to create electricity? Who made that dynamo?

To each his own, but I can't find sense in not using components you haven't made yourself. Would you have to mine your own silicon to make a diode?

That's a good point

i guess, if you held to that, it would put us back to the telephone era. wind your own generator, hand wound wire resistors, hand made caps. wow. that would be very limited, and time consuming. Nothing i would be intrested in...

Is there even a way to make your own diode any more, or light bulb?

Ok, I get your point. but really its just the transistors that I think are cheating.