Arduino and Electronics for Schools
Buy the cheap Arduino Nano clones by the dozen. They are inexpensive enough that the brain stays inside the kid's build and goes home with them.
If you are buying programmable electronics for an elementary or middle school makerspace, the right default is a bulk bag of Arduino Nano clones, not a class set of micro:bits. The reason is not technical. It is philosophical: kids get to keep the brain.
Our core principle at Maker Lab Kids is that the project a kid builds should go home with them, fully working, with the microcontroller still inside. That is only possible if the microcontroller is cheap enough that you do not care if it leaves the classroom. A $2 to $3 Nano clone is; a $20 micro:bit is not.
Short version
Start: Arduino Nano clones, bulk pack. Around $2 to $3 each when bought ten or more at a time.
Step up for more I/O: Arduino Uno R3 or Elegoo Mega 2560 clones when a project outgrows the Nano pin count.
Step up for WiFi and Bluetooth: ESP32 boards when kids want networked projects.
Pair with: breadboards, jumper wires, a component grab bag, USB cables, Tinkercad Circuits (free), and the Arduino IDE.
Skip: micro:bit class sets, Arduino-brand starter kits at 3x the parts-bin price, printer-locked boards.
The brain goes home inside the build
If the microcontroller costs more than a snack pack, you will take it back out of the project at the end of the unit. That is not a maker project. That is a demo.
There is a real pedagogical gap between "we built a thing and then the teacher took the expensive bit out" and "we built a thing and you own it forever, battery and all." The first teaches kids that electronics are something adults loan them. The second teaches them that electronics are something they make.
The whole buy-in-bulk, accept-the-churn philosophy of this page is built around making the second option affordable. A Nano at $2.50 can be glued into a cardboard castle, handed to a kid, and never thought about again. A $20 board cannot.
Arduino Nano clones (bulk)
An Arduino Nano clone is a thumb-size board with 14 digital I/O pins, 8 analog inputs, a USB port, and an ATmega328P microcontroller. It runs the exact same code, on the exact same Arduino IDE, as any other Nano. Brands like Elegoo, HiLetgo, and dozens of others produce them. You can buy a 3-pack for well under $20, or a 10-pack for not much more.
Quality varies. Check reviews, prefer sellers with real return policies, and expect one or two DOAs out of every dozen. At these prices, that is fine. Buy spares.
Common catch: many clones use the CH340 USB-to-serial chip instead of the FTDI original. The Arduino IDE handles both, but on some Mac and Windows machines the CH340 driver has to be installed separately. Install it once on every lab machine and forget about it.
Arduino Uno R3 or Elegoo Mega 2560 clones
When a project outgrows the Nano's 14 digital pins - say, a kid wants to light 16 individually addressable LEDs, or drive two servos plus four sensors plus a display - the answer is more pins, not a more clever Nano. An Uno R3 clone has the same chip as a Nano but a bigger, more beginner-friendly through-hole layout that plugs straight into shield hardware. An Elegoo Mega 2560 clone jumps you to 54 digital I/O pins, which is far more than an elementary project will ever use, but gives middle school robotics teams plenty of headroom.
The Mega is also a nice step-up for a teacher-demo board. Wire it up once with a bunch of sensors and leave it on the teacher's bench as a "here is how any of these parts work" sandbox.
ESP32 boards
The ESP32 is a dual-core microcontroller with WiFi and Bluetooth built in, programmable from the Arduino IDE after a one-time board-manager setup. It is only a little more expensive than a Nano and unlocks an entire category of project: a weather station that posts to a web dashboard, a wearable that talks to a phone, a classroom scoreboard that kids update from their Chromebooks.
We do not recommend starting here. The wireless features add setup friction (joining the school network, installing libraries, handling credentials in code) that is a distraction for a first Arduino project. But once kids have done a few Nano projects and want their thing to talk to the outside world, the ESP32 is the natural next stop.
What to pair with the boards
A pile of Arduinos is not a program. These are the consumables and companion tools that turn them into one.
Breadboards
One half-size or full-size solderless breadboard per kid. Buy in bulk. They are cheap and they disappear, same as pencils.
Jumper wires
Male-to-male, male-to-female, and female-to-female. A 120-pack covers a classroom for a unit. Get the pre-cut, multi-color kind, not a spool of solid-core wire.
Component grab bag
LEDs in assorted colors, resistors (especially 220 ohm and 10k), tactile push buttons, 10k potentiometers, piezo buzzers, photoresistors, and a couple of servos and ultrasonic distance sensors. The Elegoo Super Starter Kit is a good one-box option for the teacher's bench.
USB cables
Nano clones use mini-USB (older) or USB-C (newer). Check what your board is before ordering. Buy one cable per board plus 25% spares.
9V batteries and clips
For go-home projects that need to untether from the USB cable. A 9V into a barrel-jack or Vin pin powers a Nano fine. Rechargeable 9Vs are a luxury; alkalines are fine for the first project.
Tinkercad Circuits
Free online Arduino simulator from Autodesk. Kids can wire up a virtual Nano, write code, and see the LED blink, all in the browser on a Chromebook. Great for introducing the concepts before you hand out real parts, and a genuine lifeline when a USB port fails mid-lesson.
Arduino IDE
Free, open source, runs on Windows, Mac, Linux, and Chromebooks (via the web editor). Install it on every lab machine. Install the CH340 driver at the same time so clones show up on first plug-in.
Storage tackle boxes
The single highest-leverage organizational purchase. A cheap plastic tackle box with labeled compartments for resistors, LEDs, buttons, and sensors saves more teacher time than any piece of curriculum.
What to skip
Common mistakes when equipping an electronics program.
Micro:bit class sets as your main platform
The BBC micro:bit is a beautiful teaching tool. The on-board display, the block-based editor, the built-in sensors all make it easy to get a kid to a first working program. But at roughly $18 to $20 per unit, the economics force you to take it back at the end of the lesson and put it in the next class's bin. The kid's "project" goes home with no brain. That is a demo pattern, not a maker pattern. Keep a small set for intro lessons if you want, but do not make them the backbone.
Agree to Disagree ›Arduino-brand proprietary starter kits at 3x the price
The official Arduino Starter Kit and its educational variants bundle the same breadboard, LEDs, resistors, and sensors you can buy unbundled on Amazon for roughly a third of the price. The cardboard box and the glossy booklet are not worth the markup for a school. Buy the parts, print the curriculum.
Agree to Disagree ›Any printer-manufacturer-locked board
A few 3D-printer companies have shipped "maker kits" tied to proprietary controller boards, cloud accounts, or closed IDEs. These exist to lock you into an ecosystem, not to teach electronics. Stay on the open Arduino / ESP32 path - the code, libraries, tutorials, and replacement parts are all interchangeable.
Agree to Disagree ›"Scratch-only" hardware that cannot graduate to text code
Some boards are sold exclusively with a block-based editor. That is fine for first contact, but makers eventually outgrow blocks. A Nano programmed from the Arduino IDE can start in Tinkercad Circuits with blocks and graduate to C++ on the same board. A locked block-only board has a ceiling.
Agree to Disagree ›All the links
Every product, brand, and tool mentioned on this page. No affiliate arrangements - these are just the parts we actually recommend.