When you were a kid, you may have made a lemon battery for a school science project. These are very simple to make and involves inserting dissimilar metals into a lemon. Typical materials are copper staples and zinc plated nails. This combination usually gives you 0.7V and a few milliamps. The chemical reaction that happens...
Breadboards are invaluable for experimenting with electronic circuits. They allow you to create temporary circuits that can be easy changed. This tutorial explains the basics of how breadboards work and how to use them. A typical breadboard consists of 100's of holes called tiepoints. These tiepoints are aligned on a 0.1" (2.54mm) grid. The board...