John Adams | Hot Wires: Plug and play electronics set
John Adams | Hot Wires: Plug and play electronics set with 100 experiments! | Science and STEM Toys | Ages 8+
Hot Wires is safe, fun and supports National Curriculum Learning and STEM principles.
Discover 100 action-packed and exciting experiments, including building a real flying disk, a lie detector test, an alarm and lots more!
The colourful, easy to use instruction booklet guides you into the wonderful world of electronics.
| Model: | 3412 |
| Material: | Plastic |
| Colour: | Multicolor |
| Batteries Required: | Yes |
| Batteries Included: | No |
| Age: | 7 – 12 years |
| Assembly: | No |
| Material: | Plastic |
This set is great. Bought for 7-year old, we’ve done a few experiments as per the book and he also likes going free-style which has varying degrees of success, but all good for learning. He’s done some ‘electricity’ stuff at school so knew it was something he was interested in. A purchase which will actually be used more than once! Recommend.
I purchased this for a birthday present for my grandson and he is really enjoying experimenting with the various tasks. Good quality product but the kit was missing the bulb holder and instead had two microphones, they look very similar. I just need to work out how to get a replacement part to complete the set.
We gave this electronic kit to our 6 1/2 years old grandson and he did the 1st experiment (light with switch) with a bit of explanation and guidance. Then the spinner with motor and flying disk built virtually on his own and later an FM Radio Came into the room with a beaming smile carrying the kit and said “I’ve built a radio”, flicked a switch and it started playing music, he said “it’s Radio 2” He had done this one entirely on his own. He likes building things and is an experienced Lego fan so that helped. Brilliantly inspiring toy!
Well worth the money, clever design, excellent sturdy mouldings, well built electrical modules and really easy to follow instructions with nicely written educational background text. 10/10 from this retired enginee
Bought this for my 8 year old after he’d enjoyed a topic at school using circuits. Really great fun and easy enough to do following the instructions. After about a week of playing with it, he did eventually get a bit bored as it begins to get slightly repetitive perhaps. But maybe that’s just my son’s short attention span! Still recommend though.
This is such a great product for fun and learning.
Our 6 year old can follow the instructions and build the smaller circuits. Also a great tool for quality parent – child time, building the more complex circuits together.
While there are less expensive products on the market, the quality of this one is excellent and the range of different circuits you can build is great. Would say it is definitely value for money.
Excellent product. Little boy loves it and has built many items with it. Keeps him busy and goes around the house testing things, especially to see if the soil in the plants is wet enough!
Fantastic toy which entertains kids for ages. Lots of learning opportunities disguised as fun play. Instructions are clear and the parts are robust with everything fitting neatly in the box. Highly recommended.
Great toy. Only reason for 4 stars not 5 is that one of the bulbs didn’t work when we opened it. However, my son (and his dad !) love it and it’s kept them busy. Not cheap but worth it.
I’m attempting to home school my 8year old, but finding fun and practical lesson resources has been a bit of a nightmare, especially as were unable to go anywhere for educational visits due to the current circumstances. This has been the best investment I could have made to inspire and re-motivate my sons drive for learning. I highly recommend this product for introducing your child to the world of electronics, it’s safe and durable. I would definitely buy more of this range.
Easy to follow, it works well, especially the radio, found a station straight away and on one version of the build, you can add a volume control. Sounds decent and my 9y old enjoyed building it. He hasn’t built anything else since building the radio as he enjoys that too much. Only rated 4 stars as maybe slightly expensive for what you get as the 100 builds are just refinements to some other builds.
Other than that, the box is big and sturdy (withstood the mail without dents) and looks like a great product, my son saw the advert on tv and wanted this, so hopefully he enjoys it when he gets i
My daughter really is enjoyed using this. She is 8/9 years old.
The instructions were easy to follow and there were so many different circuits to build.
She is currently studying electricity at school and I thought this would give her a hands on approach to what she was learning.
My one and only negative point is the spinning top broke after one use and now does not fly. This is a shame as it was one of my daughters favourite tests.
There’s no question that this is his favourite birthday present – 2 weeks on and he brings it to me and asks if we can build something. Together we’ve built the burglar alarm, radio and voice recorder – he can follow the diagrams, the most difficult part for him is working out which part goes on the bottom on the more complicated circuits.
I would say people shouldn’t be put off buying this for children slightly younger than 8 – especially if they like taking things apart and seeing how they work.
My 10 year old daughter has also been interested in this kit as well (when her brother is not around she has enjoyed building a few things). She is able to follow the instructions without any help.
I feel this is a really well designed kit and recommended it. Both my children like it.
The set is officially recommended for children over the age of eight years old which I think is a fairly accurate recommendation if you are intending to have children playing with this independently with little adult intervention. My middle son was slightly under the minimum age recommendation when he first received this set, however, but this did not affect his enjoyment at all. He did need some assistance initially to understand how all of the pieces fit together and how they are represented in the pictorial instructions as not all of the pieces are immediately obvious although it is simplified as much as it can possibly be.
My sons have their favourite experiment with this set and it is, without question, the one which causes a plastic spinner to fly up into the air. This is one of the first experiments in the booklet and consists of a fairly simple circuit so it is very quick and easy to put together but the results are very visually impressive. It is so straightforward that my ten year old son is able to build the circuit from memory without needing to refer back to the instructions at all and has been able to do this for a year or two.
Some of the experiments are not quite as successful and it can be a little disappointing and frustrating to spend time putting together some of the more complex circuits for the results to be less than great. Experiment number 75, for example, is supposed to be a basic radio and takes quite a while to build. Whilst the completed circuit does work and there is an audible radio crackling we have struggled to get any proper recognisable music or sounds coming from the completed ‘radio’. There are similar circuits that produce more impressive results from the small speaker though.
We’ve owned this set for several years now and it is something short of a miracle that the entire set remains intact and not a single piece of equipment has ever gone astray. Highly recommended
Obviously, this is a kit for children, but I won’t deny that on several evenings, I’ve found myself playing with it, long after he’s gone to bed!!! However, it won’t be long before we’ve tried every project a couple of times and we want to progress onto “proper” electronics, without the simplified ‘plug n play’ features that this kit offers, but for getting started, this is great, safe and fun. No soldering iron required!!!
The regular retail price of this is a little high for what you actually get, but I bought this when it was almost half its regular price, which felt a bit more appropriate. The quality is good though and this doesn’t feel cheap. This is my first John Adams purchase and if the quality of their other kits matches this one, it won’t be my last.
What parent will not be bowled over when their little genius appears and says “listen to this” and proceeds to tune into Radio 1 with his kit of electronic Lego? This kit is truly rewarding at all sorts of levels for both young and old alike, but be warned, your knowledge of electronics after completing all the projects will still be zero. It is a fantastic and stimulating introduction to the world of electronics without ever teaching you anything about electronics. This was brought home to me when I recently visited my grandson and he proudly involved me in building an FM radio. At one stage he asked me to hand him the 100 headphone part.. Puzzled, I asked which part did he mean? When he picked the part he had spoken of and it was a 100-ohm resistor (ohms being the unit of resistance) that was marked with is technically correct symbol 100 W.
You can preview all the project circuit diagrams and kit contents by going to the John Adams website and viewing the downloadable pdf files. See for yourself just how beautifully simple and clear they are.
If my grandson does want to start learning about real electronics then this kit will also serve as an elegantly simple teaching vehicle for understanding how circuits and basic electronic components work.
This kit is simply superb. My 7 year old granddaughter piled straight into it, using the very clear instructions to build a simple circuit, which worked first time. She then moved at random through the book building other circuits, including the flyer, where she was able to work out the effects of voltage on the height that it flies. All done with very little assistance. My 5 year old Grandson then took it up and he too was soon building circuits, using the instructions, which helped him with his reading, his construction skills and his appreciation of the function of the various components.
I cannot praise enough the ease of use and the clear instructions, even for a 5-year-old. He was able to build a radio and get it to work without help and now looks for more projects.
If there is an extension kit, then I shall be buying this because soon they will have built all the circuits.
All of the many types of switches, motors etc are clearly labelled and the accompanying booklet gives 100+ experiments to do starting from the very simple up to some reasonably complicated circuits. The great thing is that kids get confidence from the start as the first circuit is very simple, takes less than five minutes to join together and is a working light. The second is a fan, the third launches a plasic disc into the air! My ten year old literally whooped for joy at this toy and it is with serious difficulty we can convince her to pack it away when it’s time to stop playing.
I honestly wish all toys were built like this as it really couldn’t be better. Someone has really thought about how to make a simple, durable, set that is also amazing fun and really makes you think. Even my older teen daughter regularly comes in to watch her younger sister use it, and loves it too (and being the age she is, she generallly shows little enthusiasm for anything!)
One point to note, you need 4AA batteries, so if you are giving as a gift have them to hand. Highly recommended.
The kit came on time and well packed. It is well made and contains a considerable number of electronic components. Each is clearly marked so everyone, whether a complete novice or experienced in electronics, should have no difficulty identifying what each item is. There is a booklet containing a large number of experiments, each accurately described and with a very clear picture showing how each element should be positioned and clipped together. Everything we tried over the holiday worked perfectly. For a child, there are some exciting circuits that will hold their attention, just like a game. I would recommend the simple motor circuit, with a loosely coupled rotary fan blade, that can be ejected vertically like a spinning frizby. You can refine it from being simply attention-grabbing, to a slightly more skilled game where judgement is required to try and make the spinner reach a particular height. As the child grows older, it will be possible to use the kit to explain and teach some of the simple electric and electronic principles involved. There are PNP and NPN devices, light sensitive cells, a motor, a speaker, a chip capable of producing music or recording and playing back voice from a microphone, etc, etc. I was lucky enough to have been trained in electronics and so can develop usage in this way. But I would suggest that, for those not of the same bent, the kit could perhaps be enhanced even more either by including some information along these lines or by referencing simple tutorials that could be purchased later. Just a thought. All in all, I thoroughly recommend this kit, both for its immediate impact and for its potential for future educational use.
his is a really excellent product; bought for my 8-year old. Before I bought this, he & I had a go at a small make-it-yourself radio just before Christmas but it was too small & fiddly for him (although he was very interested I had to do most of the sticking resistors etc into the hobby board).
I found this whilst browsing Amazon, so as he had shown some interest I bought it even though it seemed a lot of money at the time. Since Christmas he has not been able to stop playing with it ! The quality of the pieces is really very good and they seem quite durable; the instruction book (with over 100 different circuits to make !) is very well produced on quality paper, and he sits in his room for hours making the different circuits.
What is great is that he already understands a bit about electricity from it; the idea that the circuit has to be closed for it to work, that the batteries produce “the volts that go around the circuit” and that circuits can have more than 1 loop. He tries his own circuits and sometimes even succeeds (I occasionally have to point out that he has short-circuited the batteries without a load, but he is getting there….)
In summary: an educational quality product that (in hindsight) is well worth the money. I wish all “toys” were as well made & thought out. Thoroughly recommended for the age group 8-10.
The set is pretty elementary, straightforward, safe and easy to use. Ideal for electricity-shy older kids (advertised age 8+), and savvy younger kids (aged 5 – 7 who just need something safe to run random tests on). Cost-wise, I think the price is right for what the set contains.
Conclusively, I will suggest that all components are checked and tested on first use as my boys find that the green led isn’t working and I am currently waiting for a response from John Adams/Amazon.
The instruction booklet is excellent and starts off with pages explaining the parts and then shows diagrams of very simple circuits and gradually builds up to very complex ones so younger children could start simply and progress while older children will still be challenged. There are over 100 circuits to build in all.
The aftersales service is also excellent as one of our parts was faulty. I phoned John Adams customer care and the lady I spoke to sent me a replacement and extra bulbs at no cost. They arrived within two days.
My sons verdict was that it was his best Xmas present and I can honestly say that I can see him playing with it for a very long time to come.
Quite pricey but in retrospect very good value.
This isn’t the cheapest electronics kit on the market but of the several we’ve already bought, this is easily the best. It is sturdy and will provide hours of fun to children over about the age of 6 with some adult assistance, and with increasing independence the older the child gets.
A really recommended buy, and if your child has expressed an interest in electronics, I wouldn’t hesitate to get them this. It is definitely worth the money.