Christmas is on the way and, for many of us, that means investing in the obligatory annual advent calendar to see in the 25th. It swaps the five gold rings for onion bhaji rings, 12 drummers for butter chicken drumsticks… you get the idea. CREATE YOUR OWN FM RETRO RADIO: Perfect for any Radio enthusiast, once built you can immerse yourself in the world of FM Radio. Some involve building your own gadgets, while others feature collectibles or food packs to help you create delicious meals and snacks.

It’s an advent calendar, so there’s one behind each window; Simon Says, Wire Maze and Code Breaker among them. It contains 12 spice blends, each accompanied by a simple recipe to create a variety of mouth-watering meals - all with a nod to the 12 days of Christmas. Each drawer front features a different character from the franchise, and is decorated with a foil-embossed number tracking the Christmas countdown. Most cool advent calendars come with collectibles or games, but you probably won’t find one with a more practical set of gifts than this Harry Potter-themed box.

The Haynes Electronic Games Advent Calendar is exactly that – an advent calendar that has electronic components behind each window. As a result, after cutting it for all the other games I didn’t have enough to do the wire maze… looking forward I won’t have enough for some of the other games either. The implementation is pretty good, the instructions are fairly clear although I’d liked to have seen proper circuit diagrams as well as the Fritzing pictures that show you where to plug the wires.

If you are outside the UK/USA you may have to pay customs/duties if your country charges for importing packages.

The EIGHT Build Your Own Electronic Games Advent Calendar comes with a complete instruction manual to guide you through the construction process. Most purchases from business sellers are protected by the Consumer Contract Regulations 2013 which give you the right to cancel the purchase within 14 days after the day you receive the item.

BUILD YOUR OWN RETRO RADIO IN THE COUNTDOWN TO CHRISTMAS: Ditch the chocolate and switch to an advent calendar which gives you something tangible on Christmas Eve!The 103 third parties who use cookies on this service do so for their purposes of displaying and measuring personalized ads, generating audience insights, and developing and improving products. Deliveries can take longer to arrive at busy periods, such as Christmas, or during emergency situations such as the coronavirus pandemic. Rob Miles is technology author and educator who spent many years as a lecturer in Computer Science at the University of Hull. Behind each of the 24 windows is a different electronic component, which when put together, will create a new game.