Snap Circuits is an educational toy that teaches electronics with solderless snap-together electronic components. Each component has the schematic symbol and a label printed on its plastic case for easy identification. They snap together with what appear to be ordinary clothing snaps. The components also snap onto a 10 X 7 plastic base grid somewhat analogous to a solderless breadboard.

All the kits include manuals printed in color with instructions for ages 8 or older and with easy to follow diagrams to assemble the projects. The illustrations for each project look almost exactly like what the components will look on the base grid when finished. Because the electronic symbol is printed on each electronic component, once the project is completed, it will look like a printed electronic schematic.

Snap Circuits might seem at first to be somewhat pricey. A Snap Circuits resistor costs $1.49 USD. A resistor from Mouser costs fifteen cents. On the other hand, the Snap Circuits Motion set (the set I used for this project) costs $84.95 whereas the littleBits base kit costs $99.00. So, you get a lot more Snap Circuits than littleBits and at a lower price.

As an introduction to electronics, both Snap Circuits and littleBits have an advantage over breadboard and conventional spring connector electronics kits. Some folks might find working with electronics and breadboards a bit too fiddly. Spring connector kits are easier to use than breadboards, but once you build a circuit of any complexity with a spring connector kit, it ends up looking like a rat’s nest of wires that’s difficult to troubleshoot.

It’s much easier to snap together a circuit with Snap Circuits and to troubleshoot problems. If you switch a project on and nothing happens, you can, at a glance, compare the circuit in the manual to the circuit you’ve built and easily find where you’ve connected something incorrectly.