Electronics - Amplifier kits?

[Lakeland]

Electronics - Amplifier kits for £1 ?

I'm looking to see how feasible it is to have students build an audio amplifier for their Y9 electronics lesson in the hope that it will engage and hopefully get more of them interested in electronics.

There are two packs available on Rapid electronics:
Class pack 1 - This one works out at £2.82 per student which is too expensive as I only have an allocation of £2 max per student and I'd like to look into enclosures too.
Class pack 2 - This one works out at £1.79 per student which is better but still doesn't leave much left over.

Is there anything else out there other than what Rapid offer?

 

[Lakeland]

I could copy the PCB and make them in house, a board would cost £4 and I'd get about 10 from a board, that would be 40p per board.

IC - 31.7p
Jack socket - 5p
Jack x2 - 18p
Speaker - 44p

That comes to £1.38 for the major components, the rest should be doable for another 20p so £1.58 total, seems like a lot of work for a 20p saving. Is it possible to get speakers for less than 44p?

We've got an account with Rapid, I will give them a call to see if there is any movement on the price. It's a big ask to build an audio amplifier for £1!

Edit, just thought, I could hard wire the audio cable and scrap the jack socket and one jack, that would take 14p off the total so £1.44

 

[Lakeland]

Sounds like a good plan if you knock the PCBs up yourself.

What would you hard wire the amp to? Surely your students would want to plug their phones /iPods etc. into them - that's the payback for making it and making it correctly?

You could scrap the LED and even the on/off switch - but not the jack I'd say.

Was thinking about scraping one jack but leaving the other at the end of the wire so it can be plugged into ipod/walkman etc.

Batteries can be provided to test the circuit and we can pass them on at cost (50p) to students if they don't have one at home to use.

I'm wondering if some really basic npn transistor circuit would be sufficient