Need some very simple electronics/building-stuff projects...

yalborap

Okay, so, I'm attempting to get into the hobby of building...Stuff. Gizmos, gadgets, electronic thingamajiggies, that whole range of fun things that requires a soldering iron and does things when complete.

Issue: I have no idea where to start with the very basics. Any good resources(obviously preferably free)?

Thanks in advance.

see317

You mean stuff like this?
http://www.kpsec.freeuk.com/proj.htm

Just do a google search for "Easy electronics projects" or something along those lines and see what pops up. You may also want to hit a bookstore for some books on the subject as well. Also, hit up a radio shack and buy a breadboard and a handful of random electronic components to play with. You can also salvage stuff out of old or busted electronic stuff, although the leads will be short and hard to work with in most cases.

Technicality

How basic basics are we talking? The very first things you would need are a basic understanding of electricity, and knowledge of some of the basic components and what they look like on a circuit diagram. This is usually covered in school and gives you the basic know how to follow instructions to make stuff (if not necessarily understanding it).

Beyond that the subject starts to diverge depending on what interests you.

Heres an interesting, fairly simple project I've had sitting in my bookmarks for a long time:
http://www.emanator.demon.co.uk/bigclive/joule.htm

yalborap

Somewhere between "Hey, if you stick one end of these wires to the ends of a battery, and the other end to this lightbulb, it'll light up!" and one of the little project kits available from various online stores for learning soldering and the like.

Basically, to fill in the gaps between the hyper-basic(lightbulb), sorta-basic(project-kits/simple-robots), and hardcore(see every 'hey look at the cool crazy things people hack together' blog ever).