Dev.SN

littleBits: Circuits Meet LEGO Blocks

posted by mattie_p on Wednesday March 12 2014, @04:29AM   
from the play-into-our-hands dept.

skullz writes:

"Much ado has been made about SXSW and the resurgence of hardware hacking as apposed to software. Even NPR is getting in on the action, airing a story about littleBits SXSW demo, including some videos. LittleBits are small circuit modules which snap together using magnets, much like LEGOs would if they were held together by magnets. The company pays homage to an open source mentality and hosts example projects, such as this LEGO and littleBit soundmachine, on its website, even though it seems to be missing several (or all) of the actual assembly instructions."

From their website:

littleBits (spelled lower case L, upper case B, all one word) consists of tiny circuit-boards with specific functions engineered to snap together with magnets. No soldering, no wiring, no programming, just snap together for prototyping, learning and fun. Each bit has a specific function (light, sound, sensors, buttons, thresholds, pulse, motors, etc), and modules snap to make larger circuits. Just as LEGO (TM) allows you to create complex structures with very little engineering knowledge, littleBits are small, simple, intuitive, blocks that make creating with sophisticated electronics a matter of snapping small magnets together.

If you followed SXSW, please share your favorite discoveries or insights gleaned from the conference.

• Costly.... Costly.... (Score: 3, Insightful) by VLM on Wednesday March 12 2014, @08:19AM

  by VLM (445) on Wednesday March 12 2014, @08:19AM (#15209)

  For $200 for something that looks like about two hours of entertainment, you can hire me at a special discounted bench rate of $50/hr and I'll professionally solder up anything you'd like. I personally probably do not scale as well as the output of a Chinese factory. Also I would assume that once the Imaginary Property thieves get to work this stuff will rapidly drop at least one zero off the price. And they're probably aiming a K12 STEM .edu where pretty much anything goes when there's money in the budget (which is not all the time, but for a world wide shipping product thats not a huge issue)

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• Re:Costly.... (Score: 4, Insightful) by umafuckitt on Wednesday March 12 2014, @08:49AM

  by umafuckitt (20) on Wednesday March 12 2014, @08:49AM (#15222)

  Yeah, exactly. An Arduino starter kit can be had for $50 to $100 or so and will be more flexible, educational, and useful.

  Parent