Any good summer electrical projects?

[JamesBrown]

Asking for good electrical projects is going to yield you tons of different opinions. Let us know what you might be interested in (basic home automation, Remote control vehicles, electronic art, hobby radio?) and we can give you some basic projects to get you feet wet, and then send you in the right direction to find increasingly complex projects. For example if you want to stay in the robotics field, perhaps start with beam robotics, then move on to incorporating an arduino (or your choice of other micro) and using servos that can be controlled directly with the board. Eventually build your own speed controllers, then try different sensors. If robotics doesn't seem practical to you or their is something you find very interesting let us know and we can give you better ideas of what may be fun.

As far as building the classic circuits (stop watch, head phone amp, etc) I appreciate what they are and that they teach basics of electronics but I don't think it is necessary to start this low level. Eventually you learn how/why these things work, I believe that you can start out working at a higher level, if you need an amp you can buy an IC that will serve your purpose, eventually you will learn what is going on inside, in the mean time it really isn't that important. See the big picture first, the rest will make sense as you go.