Learning by Discovery is a system developed by Charles Platt to enable an experience that is fascinating, fun, and memorable. You learn by building your own circuits–and by making your own mistakes.

In fact, mistakes are an important part of the experience. The book encourages you to "burn things out and mess things up" to find out for yourself the limits of electronic components. You'll blow a fuse and watch an overloaded LED, and you can cut open a relay to see how it works inside.

Affordable Component Kits are available from independent suppliers (on Amazon), or the book explains how to shop online yourself.

Illustrations are in full color throughout, so you'll see exactly what you need and how to use it.

While Make: Electronics minimizes the amount of theory that you need, it does show you how to figure out Ohm's Law and do the simple math to calculate the time constant of a capacitor.

A buying guide shows basic tools ranging from pliers to a low cost multimeter. A simple "finger test" demonstrates how transistors switch or amplify current. You can solder wires, if you wish, to build a permanent circuit, although soldering is not necessary to build all the circuits in the book.

You'll see how to use integrated circuit chips to create a simple circuit that tests the speed of your reflexes. Other circuits include a combination lock for a computer, or a game in which players compete to be the first to press a button.

All the basic concepts are demonstrated quickly and simply with affordable components. You'll discover resistance, capacitance, voltage, amperage, inductance, and the relationship between electricity and magnetism.