The result is littleBits, a company 29-year old Ayah founded last September. The company offers a variety of kits made up of modules, about the size of Lego bricks, for prototyping or for playing. The modules, which can be snapped together by means of small magnets to make larger circuits, have unique functions, such as light, sound, sensors, buttons, motors. No soldering, no wiring, no programming on computers is required to make the tiny circuit boards work; just snap and play and make things happen. Ayah likes to call her little circuits similar to the “popsicle sticks and pipe cleaners we used to use for crafts.” By this past Christmas, Ayah had found two parts manufacturers, one in China, the other in California, and managed to assemble 3,000 starter kits priced at $89.
Stop breadboarding and soldering – start making immediately! Adafruit’s Circuit Playground is jam-packed with LEDs, sensors, buttons, alligator clip pads and more. Build projects with Circuit Playground in a few minutes with the drag-and-drop MakeCode programming site, learn computer science using the CS Discoveries class on code.org, jump into CircuitPython to learn Python and hardware together, or even use Arduino IDE. Circuit Playground Express is the newest and best Circuit Playground board, with support for MakeCode, CircuitPython, and Arduino. It has a powerful processor, 10 NeoPixels, mini speaker, InfraRed receive and transmit, two buttons, a switch, 14 alligator clip pads, and lots of sensors: capacitive touch, IR proximity, temperature, light, motion and sound. A whole wide world of electronics and coding is waiting for you, and it fits in the palm of your hand.
Have an amazing project to share? The Electronics Show and Tell with Google Hangouts On-Air is every Wednesday at 7:30pm ET! To join, head over to YouTube and check out the show’s live chat – we’ll post the link there.
