555 Timer Circuits

We sell kits with plenty of 555 timers (including some listed here)

It’s a shame that Arduino has effectively truncated kids learning with a full MCU as the “building block” of their learning

I see it also bite them in the arse with wasteful solutions. Often a BJT or power fet is all they need (say for a basic relay trigger). But if they aren’t presented with a shiny arduino compatible module explicitly designed for what they want, they get nervous

About half the kids I see make the intellectual jump, half end up not coming back

I do wish kids were taught basic soldering, it would make the learning process a lot less worrisome

The 555 and LM741 are still supreme learning tools. They are even simple enough to breadboard out with BJTs and analogue components. I’ve only seen a few extremely hardcore guys bother to conceptualise under the hood that deeply

Why Arduinos in particular? We're in an era where you can choose any MCU (ARM, Espressif, RiscV e tc), pick a language you like within limits (C, C++, Rust, Python (sort of)), and make it happen. Open KiCad, design a PCB, and have it arrive from Shenzhen in 10 days. Or, order a dev board, and attach additional circuits to it. (STM32 Discovery, nordic dev kit, one of the cheap Chinese ones "pill" etc.) Design whatever circuits you want. Use passives, or string together ICs.

555 is obsolete tech. I see this as equivalent to suggesting someone buy an Apple II instead of a modern PC.