Raspberry Pi
A real Linux machine with GPIO pins. Reach for it when the project needs a filesystem, a camera pipeline, or Python libraries a microcontroller cannot run.
Slim Joystick
A thumb stick and six buttons on one long TinkerBlock board, on six pins. X and Y are two potentiometers, read on analog pins; KEY is the click under the stick, LOW at rest and HIGH when pushed; and all six buttons share BTNS, one analog pin, through a ladder of 10 kΩ resistors that gives each its own voltage. One button reads at a time.
Dual Axis Joystick
A thumbstick on a square TinkerBlock board, on six pins: GND, VCC, NC, X, Y and SW. X and Y are two potentiometers from VCC to GND, read on analog pins; SW is the click under the stick, LOW at rest and HIGH when pressed, with its own pull-down. Every line reaches VCC, so VCC is your board's logic voltage. A PWR light and an SW light show power and each click.
INA219 and INA3221 Current Monitors: shunt, range and wiring
Two I²C current and voltage monitors: the TK119 with one INA219 on a 100 mΩ shunt, and the INA3221 with three channels on 50 mΩ. What the chip measures and what it works out, why the two resistors differ, the range and step each one gives, and the wiring for both.
INA219 Current Monitor
A 100 milliohm resistor in the positive wire and a chip that reads the millivolts across it. Current, voltage and power over I²C, up to 3.2 A on a rail of up to 26 V.
SD and microSD Card Readers for ESP32: SPI, 1-bit and 4-bit
Two 3.3 V card reader boards with the SD bus brought out in full. What the two NC pins really are, which of SPI, 1-bit and 4-bit to use, what each measured, and the wiring for all three.
SHT31 Temperature and Humidity Sensor
A Sensirion SHT31 on a TinkerBlock carrier: two numbers over two shared wires, calibrated at the factory, with the pull-ups already fitted and two jumpers on the back that set the address and take them away again.
58mm Thermal Printers: the receipt kit, the label kit and the USB-C base board
Two thermal printer kits that share one Type-C TTL base board. The 9 V a USB port will not give you, which header your microcontroller belongs on, the baud rate printed on each unit, and the commands that put text, barcodes and labels on paper.
SPI TFT LCD Display Kit, 0.96 to 3.5 inch
Six colour SPI displays that are electrically one display: the same 15-pin ribbon, the same eight pads, the same eight wires. Which size to pick, how to wire it, and the one constant that swaps between them.
USB-C PD Trigger, 100 W Decoy 5–20 V
A USB-C charger holds 9, 12, 15 and 20 V and hands you 5 V until something asks. This board asks. Three levers set the voltage, a CH224K does the negotiating, and a screw terminal brings it out.
0.56-inch 7-Segment Digits with a 74HC595 Driver Board
A 24-pack of 0.56" seven-segment digits and twelve 74HC595 driver boards: three wires instead of eight, which digit is common cathode and which is common anode, how the ten pins line up, and the current limit that bites on 8.
10-Segment LED Bar Graph Display
Ten independent LEDs in one 20-pin package, with a resistor board that puts 220 Ω in front of each. Which way round it goes, why LOW lights a segment, and what ten of them at once costs an Arduino.
1602 I²C LCD Display Module, 16×2 Blue
A 16 × 2 character display with the I²C chip on the board rather than on a backpack. Four wires, address 0x27 by default, three solder pads to change it, and a contrast trimmer that explains most blank screens.
32x8 LED Matrix with MAX7219, 3-Pack
Four 8x8 squares in one strip, 256 LEDs, three signal wires. What the pads are called, why the sketch has to say four, and what to do about a 3.3 V board on a chip that wants 3.5 V.
4″ 7-Segment LED Display with 74HC595
A 100 mm digit with its own shift register on the back. Five wires from your board, a 12 V supply for the segments, and modules that plug into each other to make longer numbers.
ADS1115 16-Bit ADC I2C Module
Four analog inputs on two wires, with a real 16-bit converter and its own reference — the part you reach for when analogRead is not good enough. Which range to pick, why the supply is the real ceiling, and the two addresses this board can take.
Arcade Coin Acceptor Module Kit, USB-C Powered
A 12 V arcade coin acceptor and the USB-C board that runs it from one cable and hands your microcontroller a logic-level pulse. Up to six coin types, trained on real coins, counted on a single GPIO.
MAX7219 Vintage Tube LED Clock Kit
Eight 0.28-inch digits on a MAX7219, in a glass tube with a cork. Three displays arrive built and three arrive as pieces — a driver board and two four-digit panels, in red or blue, with a colon or with decimal points.
USB-C Breakout Board with 5.1 kΩ CC Resistors
A USB-C socket that a modern charger will actually talk to, with both CC pull-downs already fitted. What the resistors do, which of the six pads is which, how much current you may take, and the one thing the board can never be.
AMS1117 LDO Regulator Modules: 3.3 V and Adjustable
Eighteen fixed 3.3 V boards and six adjustable ones that turn a higher supply into a steady lower voltage. What to feed them, which pin is which, how much current before heat stops them, and how to set the adjustable board.
Logic Level Converters: MOSFET 2/4/6-Channel, TXB0108 and TXS0108
Five boards that let a 3.3 V board and a 5 V part share a wire safely. Which one to use for I²C, SPI, serial or an LED strip, which side is which, and the three wires that come before any signal.
1.8-inch TFT Display
160 by 128 in colour over SPI. Enough pixels for a dashboard, few enough to redraw quickly — and the display that teaches you about partial updates.
4-Direction Tilt Sensor
One metal roller in a square switch with four corner contacts, on a TinkerBlock board: tip an edge down and the roller joins that side's two lines. Your board finds which pair by holding one line LOW and reading who follows. Four answers and none, no angle, and four red LEDs that light when a line is held LOW.
74HC595 Segment LED
Segment digits driven through a shift register: three pins for eight outputs, and the trick worth learning once because it applies to everything.
8x8 LED Matrix
Sixty-four LEDs and a MAX7219 that scans them for you. Two boards share this page — the TinkerBlock TK52 and the chainable module that comes three to a box — and only one of them can be chained.
Active Buzzer
One pin, one tone. It makes a noise when you set the pin high, and that is genuinely the whole story.
Ambient Light Sensor
A phototransistor and a 4.7 kΩ resistor on a TinkerBlock board: light makes a current, the resistor turns it into a voltage, and SIGNAL rises with the light. A lit room reads low on the scale, bright light flattens just under VCC, and it sees near infrared best.
Analog Microphone
An electret capsule and a one-transistor amplifier on a TinkerBlock board. SIGNAL rests at a level set by the transistor's gain and swings above and below it with sound, in a band of roughly 75 Hz to 1 kHz. Read the peak-to-peak over 50 ms: it hears claps, knocks and loud voices, and it is not a recording microphone.
Analog to Digital Signal
An LM393 comparator on a TinkerBlock board: plug an analog block into the IN socket, set a threshold with the blue knob, and DIG tells your board whether the block's voltage is above or below it. The block's own voltage passes through on ANA, and a slide switch printed H and L turns the answer over.
Collision Sensor
A lever microswitch with its 10 kΩ pull-down and a red hit light already fitted: SIGNAL reads HIGH while the lever is pushed in. The bumper for a TinkerBlock robot, and the sense that never reports a wall that is not there.
DHT11
The DHT22's cheaper sibling on the same board design: whole degrees, five per cent humidity, and a range that stops at 0 °C. Right for learning, wrong for anything you will act on.
Disc Potentiometer
A 10 kΩ thumbwheel potentiometer wired as a voltage divider: turn the wheel and SIGNAL runs from 0 V to VCC, read by one analog pin. The wheel lies flat and overhangs the board's edge, so a thumb turns it from the side.
Dual Bright LEDs
Two high-output LEDs with the resistors already fitted. A torch, or a flash for a robot's camera — and enough current draw to matter.
EEPROM Memory
Bytes that survive a power cut, over I2C. Where settings go when there is no SD card — and the chip that teaches you writes are not free.
Five-Direction Joystick
Four directions and a centre press wired as five switches — menu navigation with no ADC and no dead-zone maths.
Hall Effect Sensor
An omnipolar Hall switch on a TinkerBlock board: bring either pole of a magnet near and SIGNAL goes LOW and a red light comes on. No contact to wear out, it works through plastic, and it looks at the field every 22 ms, so it is made for doors, lids and slow wheels.
Infrared Photodiode
The receiving half of a break-beam pair, without the 38 kHz demodulator a remote needs — so it reports light level rather than messages.
Infrared Speed Sensor
A slotted optical gate. Put an encoder disc through it and you can count revolutions — reliably, at speeds a mechanical switch could not survive.
Infrared Transmitter
A bare infrared LED for line-of-sight signalling and the sending half of a break-beam pair — no carrier, no protocol, just light you cannot see.
IR Receiver
A Vishay TSOP18138 38 kHz infrared receiver on a TinkerBlock board: SIGNAL idles HIGH and goes LOW while a remote sends, and the IRremote library turns those lows into an address and a command.
IR Sender
An Everlight IR908-7C 940 nm infrared LED, switched by a transistor, on a TinkerBlock board. SIGNAL HIGH lights it; your microcontroller makes the 38 kHz carrier, and one 150 Ω resistor decides how far it reaches.
Knock Sensor
A spring vibration switch with its 10 kΩ pull-down, a 100 nF capacitor and a red flash light already fitted: SIGNAL goes HIGH for a moment each time a knock swings the spring onto its rod. A tap on a table as a button, a door that was knocked, a box that was dropped.
Latching Button
A push-on, push-off switch with its pull-down and a red indicator LED already fitted: one press turns SIGNAL HIGH and it stays HIGH, through a reset or a power cut, until the next press.
Linear Hall Effect Sensor
Magnetic field strength as a voltage rather than just present or absent. Contactless current sensing starts here.
LM75 Temperature Sensor
Digital temperature over I2C, calibrated at the factory. No ADC, no maths, no drift to correct for.
Logic Level Converter
Bidirectional 5 V to 3.3 V translation. The part that stops a 5 V sensor from quietly damaging a 3.3 V board.
Matrix Keypad with I2C Adapter (4x4, PCF8574)
A 4×4 keypad on two I²C wires instead of eight GPIO pins. The TK85 adapter, the soft and heavy-duty keypads, the two keymaps they need, and how to put two on one bus.
Mechanical Key and LED
A keyboard switch with an LED underneath. Real tactile feedback, and a light to say why it fired — two circuits, not one.
NTC Thermistor
A 10 kΩ NTC thermistor in a divider with a fixed 10 kΩ: SIGNAL is half of VCC at 25 °C and falls as it warms. Read it on any analog pin and turn it into degrees with two lines of arithmetic.
Passive Buzzer
A speaker with no oscillator of its own, so you choose the frequency. This is the one that plays tunes.
Piezo-Ceramic Sensor
A crystal that makes voltage when it bends. Vibration and impact with an amplitude you can actually read — and it needs no power of its own.
Push Button
A 12 mm momentary push button with its 10 kΩ pull-down and a red press light already fitted: SIGNAL reads HIGH while the button is down. The first input in the kit, and the module that teaches debouncing.
Reed Switch
Two contacts sealed in glass that close near a magnet. The window sensor in every alarm system, and it needs no power to do its job.
Reflective Optical Sensor
Light out, light back. Line following, edge detection, and counting things going past on a belt — as long as the surface plays fair.
RGB LED
A red, a green and a blue LED in one 5 mm package, each with its own 1 kΩ resistor and its own pin, joined at a common cathode. Three PWM pins mix any colour, and the handbook works out why three equal numbers are not white.
Rotary Encoder
An EC11-type rotary encoder with a push switch in its shaft, its pull-ups, filter capacitors and pull-down already fitted. Two contacts a quarter of a cycle apart give the direction; the program keeps the count. Pushed in, BTN reads HIGH.
Rotary Potentiometer
A 10 kΩ linear potentiometer with a knob, wired as a voltage divider: SIGNAL gives 0 V to VCC as you turn. A red LED on the wiper glows as you turn up, and it bends the upper part of the reading: hard on 5 V, less on 3.3 V.
Steam Sensor
Interdigitated traces that read humidity as resistance. Rain, steam, and a plant pot that needs watering — and traces that corrode if you leave it powered.
Tilt Sensor
A ball and two contacts. Upright or not, and nothing in between — which is exactly enough for a tilt alarm.
TinkerBlock
Our own modular series — sensors, displays and actuators that share one pin convention, one numbering scheme, and one set of wiring habits.
TinkerBlock 46-Piece Sensor Module Kit
Forty-four modules on gold-plated breakouts, sharing one pin convention — and the forty-five-lesson workshop written around them.
TinkerBlock Ultrasonic Distance Sensor Kit
Distance by echo timing, five to a pack — enough for a robot with a sensor on every side.
TM1637 4-Digit Display (0.56 inch)
Four seven-segment digits on two ordinary pins. The clock set with its colon, the digit set with decimal points, the TinkerBlock TK51, and the one bit that behaves differently on each.
TP223 Touch Sensor
A capacitive pad that behaves like a button and works through a plastic panel — no hole, no moving part, nothing to wear out. This board is wired active-high and momentary, and neither is selectable.
Traffic Light
Red, yellow and green LEDs, each with its own 1 kΩ resistor and its own pin, sharing one GND: three digital outputs, and the first sketch that has to remember what it is doing.
Ultrasonic Distance Sensor
Distance by echo timing, on a chip that speaks four protocols and runs from 3.3 V. Soft and angled surfaces are where it quietly lies to you.
Vibration Motor
A 10 mm coin vibration motor on a TinkerBlock board, switched by a MOSFET and fed from the board's own 3.3 V regulator. SIGNAL HIGH buzzes, LOW stops, analogWrite sets the strength. VCC only feeds the regulator, so 5V on VCC is safe beside a 3.3 V board, and 3V3 or 5V both give the motor about 3.3 V.
Voltmeter
A 30 kΩ and 7.5 kΩ divider behind a two-screw terminal: SIG is exactly one fifth of the input, so an analog pin can read up to 25 V on a 5 V board and about 15.5 V on a 3.3 V one. DC only, measured from GND.
WS2812 RGB LED Bar
Addressable LEDs on a single data line. The timing is strict enough that the library talks to it and you do not.
XL LED
A 10 mm blue LED with its 150 Ω resistor already fitted, driven by one pin: the first output most people ever drive, and the light every later lesson uses to show that something happened.
DHT22 and DHT11 Temperature and Humidity Sensors
Two sensors on one board design, one data wire, one library. What each is worth, why the same forty bits decode two ways, and the six-pack that holds three of each.