List of STEM Kits¶
This page consolidates every physical, buildable STEM kit found across the
intelligent-textbook family of repos (src/kits/ and docs/kits/ in each
book). It is a sales/inventory-planning reference — a candidate list of kits
that could be packaged and sold, grouped by the book that documents them.
Placeholder pages with no real content, pure comparison/survey pages with no single buildable kit, and exact duplicates across repos have been left out.
Total kits: 62
Clocks and Watches Kits¶
Character LCD Clock¶
A clock built around a low-cost ($5) 16x2 I2C character LCD (LCD1602) and a real-time-clock chip that shows the date, time, and temperature.
GC9A01 Round Display Clock¶
A smartwatch-style analog/digital clock face driven by the GC9A01, a 240x240 round color SPI display chip.
ILI9341 Color TFT Clock¶
A clock face on a low-cost ($9) 240x320 color TFT display, chosen because the driver can draw smooth circles for analog clock hands.
TM1637 LED Clock Kit¶
An entry-level clock (under $10 total) built from a 4-digit 7-segment TM1637 LED module wired to a Raspberry Pi Pico over a simple 2-wire interface.
LILYGO T-Display RP2040 Clock¶
An all-in-one RP2040 board with a built-in 1.14" color LCD, two buttons, and custom firmware to make a compact desk clock.
MAX7219 LED Clock¶
A digital clock driven by the low-cost MAX7219 LED driver chip, which runs a row of seven-segment displays over a single serial interface.
Large OLED Clock Kit¶
A versatile clock combining a 128x64 SSD1306 OLED, a Raspberry Pi Pico W, and a DS3231 real-time clock (accurate to 2 seconds/month), with three buttons for manual time and alarm adjustment.
SH1106 OLED Clock¶
A clock built around the SH1106 monochrome OLED driver over I2C, with custom segment-mapping logic to render clock digits.
SSD1306 I2C OLED Clock¶
An entry-level clock using a $3-4 small SSD1306 OLED display connected over a simple 4-wire I2C bus.
ST7735 Color LCD Clock¶
A color clock kit using the low-cost (~$3.50) 1.8" ST7735 SPI LCD, covering RGB565 color and screen rotation.
Stopwatch Kit¶
A two-button OLED stopwatch (Start/Stop and Reset) built on a Raspberry Pi Pico, with an interactive on-screen simulation of the display.
Waveshare RP2040 SmartWatch Kit¶
A ~$18 all-in-one RP2040 development board with a 1.28" round IPS LCD, USB-C, LiPo connector, and a built-in accelerometer/gyroscope for smartwatch programming.
FFT Benchmarking Kits¶
FFT Lab Kit¶
A ~$19/student hardware kit for a 35-lab course on FFT and digital signal processing, built on a Raspberry Pi Pico 2 (RP2350) with a 2.42" SPI OLED display, two buttons, and an INMP441 I2S MEMS microphone.
Learning MicroPython Kits¶
Cytron Maker Pi Pico Kit¶
A $9.99 breakout board for the Raspberry Pi Pico that adds a speaker, stereo headphone jacks, and an SD card reader.
Cytron Maker Pi RP2040 Collision Avoidance Robot¶
A collision-avoidance robot (under $20 in parts) built around the Cytron Maker Pi RP2040 and a time-of-flight distance sensor.
Maker Pi RP2040 Robotics Kit¶
The base Cytron Maker Pi RP2040 board ($9.90) mounted on a standard smart-car chassis, with 13 status LEDs, 2 NeoPixels, a LiPo connector, and buttons.
NeoPixel Starter Kit¶
A low-cost (under $10) starter kit with a Raspberry Pi Pico, a half-size breadboard, a WS2811B LED strip, two push buttons, and a USB cable.
RFID Reader Kit¶
A kit for wiring and using the popular MFRC522 RFID reader module with a Raspberry Pi Pico over SPI to read RFID cards and tags.
Spectrum Analyzer Kit¶
A kit that displays a live audio frequency spectrum on an OLED, using a Raspberry Pi Pico, a microphone, and a Cooley-Tukey FFT with Hanning windowing.
Larson Scanner Pumpkin Kit¶
A "Cylon eye" scanning-LED effect built into a craft pumpkin (~$25 total) using a 144-pixel/meter NeoPixel strip and a Raspberry Pi Pico.
Cytron Maker Nano RP2040 Kit¶
A low-cost ($9) RP2040 board with 14 GPIO blue LEDs, 2 NeoPixel RGB LEDs, a piezo buzzer, and Grove-compatible ports.
Moving Rainbow Kits¶
Moving Rainbow Base Kit¶
The foundational kit for the whole course — a Raspberry Pi Pico, half-size breadboard, 30-LED WS2812B strip, and two push buttons — typically under $10/kit in classroom quantities.
8x8 NeoPixel Matrix Kit¶
An 8x8 (64-pixel) NeoPixel matrix panel (~$12) programmable with MicroPython's built-in NeoPixel library.
BookStore Sign Kit¶
A 134-pixel NeoPixel sign spelling "Bookstore," with switchable display modes controlled by back-mounted buttons.
Cylon Pumpkin Kit¶
A scanning "Cylon eye" LED effect built into a craft foam pumpkin (~$10 plus LED strip) using a 144-pixel/meter NeoPixel strip and a USB power pack.
Digital Nightlight Kit¶
A Raspberry Pi Pico breadboard nightlight with a button, two potentiometers, a power switch, and a photoresistor to control pattern, brightness, and color/speed.
Analog Nightlight Kit¶
An analog nightlight circuit with sensitivity and brightness controls, built without a microcontroller.
Halloween Party NeoPixel Kit¶
A "power-limited" Halloween-themed NeoPixel pattern kit (orange/purple effects) that caps lit pixels at one-third of the strip to stay USB-safe.
Holiday Hats Kit¶
A foam-core hat fitted with NeoPixel strips, reusable across holidays by swapping the color pattern; built on the Moving Rainbow base kit.
Jake's Fire Kit¶
A small color-changing tabletop "campfire" prop using programmable RGB LEDs, wooden sticks, and cellophane.
LED Candle Kit¶
A $10 kit using a NeoPixel ring, Raspberry Pi Pico, breadboard, and battery/USB power to simulate a flickering candle.
LED Dimmer Kit¶
A basic transistor-based LED dimmer circuit (potentiometer plus a 2N2222 NPN transistor).
LED Noodle Nightlight Kit¶
A rope-light ("noodle") nightlight built from a simple LED driver circuit.
Name Sign Night Light Kit¶
A NeoPixel sign spelling a name, with a photo sensor that triggers a 20-minute fading rainbow nightlight mode when the room lights go out.
Nightlight Circuit Kit¶
A simple LDR-and-transistor nightlight circuit with two potentiometers for sensitivity and brightness adjustment.
Robot Faces Kits¶
OLED Robot Faces Kit¶
A lab series teaching MicroPython framebuffer graphics (pixels, lines, shapes, text) on a 128x64 monochrome OLED, building up to animated robot faces.
1.2" Smartwatch Robot Face Kit¶
Ports the OLED robot-face kit to a 240x240 round color GC9A01 display, the same panel used in cheap smartwatches, for under $10 total.
2.1" Smartwatch Robot Face Kit (GC9B72)¶
A larger sibling kit using a 360x360 round color display driven by a GC9B72 controller; the driver was reverse-engineered since GalaxyCore does not publish documentation for it. Also sold as the Thinking Spot Logo Smartwatch Kit with a custom logo face.
STEM Robots Kits¶
Base STEM Robot¶
The classic low-cost (~$19) collision-avoidance robot built on the Cytron Maker Pi RP2040 and a 2WD smart-robot-car chassis; requires no soldering and is the recommended first robot purchase.
Adjustabot¶
A variant of the Display Bot with three potentiometers added so students can "program" motor power, distance threshold, and turn time by turning knobs.
Bump Switch Bot¶
A robot that uses cheap (under $1) microswitches instead of a distance sensor for collision detection.
Display Bot¶
Adds a 2.42" OLED display to the base robot so status and distance readings are visible while the robot runs.
9-DOF IMU Kit¶
A standalone learning kit that wires a 9-axis motion sensor to a bare Raspberry Pi Pico and streams live gyroscope/accelerometer/magnetometer data.
Compass Kit (HMC5883L)¶
A standalone digital compass built from the HMC5883L magnetometer and a Raspberry Pi Pico, drawing a live compass heading on an OLED.
Motion Detection Explorer Kit¶
A standalone (non-robot) learning bench — Pico, breadboard, MPU6050 IMU sensor, and OLED display — for teaching how an IMU works.
Line Follower Bot¶
A line-following robot variant of the base STEM robot.
MAX98357A Audio Amplifier Kit¶
Adds a MAX98357A Class-D I2S audio amplifier (~$10) to a robot so it can play recorded sounds and speech instead of simple piezo beeps.
Rainbow Bot¶
Adds a colorful 8x8 NeoPixel matrix to the top of the base robot, changing colors and patterns as the robot moves.
Smartwatch Compass Kit¶
Combines an HMC5883L digital compass sensor with a round GC9A01 color screen and a Raspberry Pi Pico to build a compass with a live needle display.
Robot Sound Synthesizer Kit¶
Generates R2-D2-style expressive robot sounds using a single GPIO pin (PWM pitch-shifting), with no audio chip or recorded sound files needed.
Ultrasonic Bot¶
A collision-avoidance robot variant using an ultrasonic (ping) distance sensor.
WiFi Bot¶
Uses the Cytron Robo Pico board (a Raspberry Pi Pico W) for built-in WiFi/Bluetooth, enabling wireless robot control.
WiFi Display Bot¶
Extends the WiFi Bot with an OLED display showing startup status, WiFi connection state, and a driver web-server form.
Swarm Robot Kit¶
A heading-follower swarm robot using a 9-DOF IMU module ($5.96) on the Cytron ROBO-PICO board. Still in the planning stage.
Thinking Spot Demos Kits¶
Thinking Spot Logo Smartwatch Kit¶
Reuses the 2.1" GC9B72 smartwatch kit's wiring, driver, and configuration to display the Thinking Spot bookstore logo instead of a robot face; available in a white-background and a black-background/white-lettering variant.
Beginning Electronics Kits¶
5V Regulator Kit¶
A 7805 linear voltage regulator circuit with input/output filter capacitors that produces a constant 5V output from a higher input voltage.
Low-Cost Buck Converter Kit¶
A DIY guide and parts kit for building a basic buck (step-down) converter using an inductor, MOSFET switch, Schottky diode, and smoothing capacitor.
Interactive Electronic Busy Board¶
A hands-on busy board for young children combining buttons, switches, knobs, LEDs, and buzzers to teach cause-and-effect and basic circuit concepts.
LED Dimmer Project Kit¶
A high-school-level dimmer circuit for one or more LEDs using a 5V supply, a potentiometer, a 2N2222 NPN transistor, and current-limiting resistors.
RGB LED Kit¶
A simple RGB LED circuit powered by 2 AA batteries with 3 current-limiting resistors on a breadboard.
Signal Generator Kit¶
An XR2206-based DIY function-generator kit producing sine, square, and triangle waveforms from 1Hz to 1MHz; requires soldering to assemble.
Variable Power Supply Kit¶
A DIY variable DC power supply (under $10) built from an LM317 adjustable regulator kit, usable with any spare AC/DC transformer.
