Most waking hours we are connecting, being entertained or working with some form of electronics. The fundamental elements of these pervasive gadgets is now demystified through an outstanding new set of exploratory building kits. littleBits offers collections of domino sized modules that plug’n play into numerous circuit based creations: ultra-bright LED with dimmer, variable spin motor with speedometer, button operated horn. All of these can be mixed and matched into other devices (I just inserted a dimmer between the button and horn and could modulate it’s beep, you could add the LED light to this circuit and have the intensity of the light rise and fall with the volume of the horn – I’m back to playing with this thing as soon as I finish writing this!) Beyond the helpful directions provided with each set you stop by their website to find any number of littleBits creations from a pirate’s pet parrot to a magic wand or honking tricycle, adding feathers, rubber bands, cardboard, popsicle sticks or grill skewers made by their broad following of junior engineers. Its overall clever design includes a combination of magnets and alignment tabs on opposite sides of each module to ensure failsafe experimentation. Repulsing polarities and misaligned tabs prevent the inventor from assembling anything but a working circuit. Edison would have liked this! These small, intuitive blocks come in sets for the classroom too, while encouraging cooperative learning, planning, experimenting, and creating, they build language skills essential for teaming–group problem-solving, negotiation, and collaboration. littleBits is every teacher’s dream, ideal for STEM or STEAM teaching and group discovery. Could there possibly be more learning potential in a little box of electronics?
Available at littleBits: Click here
