Beginner electronics setup for a 11 year old, UK specific...

[hamster_nz]

A few years ago I tried the Crystal Radio thing with a couple of family friends who was about 11. It didn't work out very well. Would not recommend it.

There is no mystique in building your own crystal radio when it only lets you listen to mostly religious programming or talkback radio, through one ear, at very low volumes and you still have to run a wires out a window to a water pipe and a tree to make it work.

[mikeselectricstuff]

Definitely avoid Arduino for now as it's too much keyboarding to start with. You want kits etc. that do something interesting on their own to start with. Maybe something that can subsequently be modified via Arduino etc.

Get hold of some dead (battery operated) electronics to take apart and a set of screwdrivers etc.

Pretty much any multimeter for starters, but get something with autoranging - should be able to find something for £10-15 Plenty on Ebay but beware of Chinese sellers that may take too long to arrive for Christmas.

Cheap breadboards and selection of LEDs etc. There's tons of cheap component sets and kits on ebay

[cdev]

One of these would be cheap and incredibly useful, if it was clearly marked that it could be damaged by charged capacitors, and so they had to be discharged before testing them.

https://www.eevblog.com/forum/testgear/$20-lcr-esr-transistor-checker-project/