The 2 Best Electronics Kits for Kids and Beginners in 2025
Top pick
Smart Circuits offers the best combination of interesting projects, thorough instructions, and real learning. Our testers loved using the kit to build noisemakers and conduct quick experiments.
The SmartLab Smart Circuits kit offers the best overall experience for total beginners who want to start working with electronics and are willing to read thorough instructions. It’s recommended for ages 8 and up, but we think older ages or focused kids will do better at following the curriculum.
The kit’s instructions are the best we tried because they combine an educational curriculum with easy-to-follow steps, allowing you to learn all about a project or to just start building based on the visual diagrams. Its 48 pieces also snap together easily to make simple but imagination-sparking creations.
The instructions are clear and well-organized. The Smart Circuits instruction booklet is structured as a curriculum that explains the components of the kit before walking you through increasingly complicated projects in which the concepts build on one another. The booklet is colorful and laid out well, and each project has a diagram that shows how to connect the pieces.
The mom on our test panel liked the option to first follow the diagram showing where to place each wire and then read the in-depth description of the project for further context. Three of the four kid testers in our initial panel liked this kit the best. Although they couldn’t pinpoint exactly what about the directions appealed to them, the instructions’ clarity was evident in how quickly the kids were able to begin building and completing projects.
It comes with lots of engaging projects. The instructions cover 50 sample projects — half the number of our runner-up pick, but enough for roughly two and a half hours of construction time. The projects we tried took the kids between 15 seconds (to build a simple circuit) and four minutes (to build a push button). These times felt short, but the kids on our first test panel liked how rapidly they could move between projects. They were focused on getting a result — and having the chance to play with that result — so the more finished projects, the better. The projects taught kids about electric current, conductors, light waves, and more.
There’s enough flexibility to create new projects without instructions. After completing the Smart Circuits curriculum, kids should understand enough to make their own creations without any instructions. It takes some imagination and a true grasp of how each component works, but interested and determined kids will be able to stay engaged after the initial projects are complete. They might choose to make paper or cardboard crafts to augment the kit; the light-up module could become a robot’s glowing eyes or the taillights on a car.
You don’t need extra components (other than batteries). Everything you need to start building with Smart Circuits comes in the box except for batteries. The kit includes modular pieces (a battery holder, push buttons, an LED array, a microprocessor) that snap onto the kit’s six gridlike boards, and 31 wires for attaching the modules in different configurations.
Though the wires didn’t always attach to the modules easily, our initial round of testers liked working with them because they looked like real electronics components. The modules themselves felt sturdy and were clearly marked with their purpose, much like the pieces in the other electronics kits we tried.
Flaws but not dealbreakers
It’s not as flashy as some other kits. Although the Smart Circuits kit was popular with our first panel of young testers, it was the least favorite among our second group of testers, fourth graders and fifth graders who got to play with more building and entertainment-focused kits like the R2-D2–shaped, but discontinued, Sphero LittleBits Droid Inventor.
Because making successful Smart Circuits projects is so reliant on reading the instructions, we think the fact that they were working in groups impacted their experience significantly. They also found it more fun to see the R2-D2 take shape as opposed to working with something resembling a breadboard. We observed that kids just don’t find making a buzzer go off as fun as driving around a robot they built.
Some components felt a bit fragile (but didn’t break in our testing). The wires in the Smart Circuits kit were a hit with our first panel of young testers because they resembled real-world electronics pieces, but they didn’t always attach easily to the modules, and they seemed less durable than the other components in the kit. However, after four years of testing, we have yet to see a Smart Circuits wire break. A company representative told us that the wires were expected to last for the lifetime of the kit, and that the company would replace defective parts but had received very few questions about replacement parts for the Smart Circuits kit.
It’s not expandable. Unlike our budget pick, the Elenco Snap Circuits Jr., and both LittleBits kits we tested, the Smart Circuits kit is not expandable and you can’t integrate electronics pieces from other companies’ kits. As a result, kids who have exhausted this kit’s options and want more will have to move on to another set. But it’s still inexpensive compared with higher-end options like Sphero LittleBits, and we believe that most people will find enough value in the Smart Circuits kit to make it worth buying as a standalone kit.
