Wanna make your own toy, do ya? The littleBits kit brings LEGO-like simplicity to creating electronic toys. Each littleBit component has a single, preset function — light responsiveness, dimming, proximity sensing, swtiching — and tinkerers can circuit them together to facilitate any task they choose. One demo, for instance, loaded a proximity sensor, battery and bulb into a piggybank; when you insert a coin, the pig’s face lit up. The boards magnetically lock together to create custom circuits. The starter kit comes with 11 pieces, and additional components are available for around $10. Eventually, the company plans to release a wireless (Bluetooth or WiFI) chip, as well as boards that will allow inventors to extend their creations in any direction — components currently only connect side-to-side.
This might be the first open-source “toy” to win an award like this?
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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, TinyGO, or even use the Arduino IDE. Circuit Playground Express is the newest and best Circuit Playground board, with support for CircuitPython, MakeCode, 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 is every Wednesday at 7pm ET! To join, head over to YouTube and check out the show’s live chat – we’ll post the link there.
