Vintage Toy Fun: Astrolite by Hasbro 1969 #Toys #Adafruit @Hasbro @adafruit
The Astrolite by Hasbro, introduced in 1969, allowed one to build cities or robots of light. Clear plastic parts were lit up using a light bulb with a color wheel that could be turned for special effects. toynfo.com describes the Astrolite:
What happens when Erector Set meets Lite Brite during the height of the space race? Hasbro’s Astrolite! This great toy from 1969 features a variety of clear plastic tubular connectors which you use to construct space bases on top of a plastic platform. Once your space station is done just plug in Astrolite and turn off the lights and your creation lights up with red, green, yellow and white lights! Spin the wheel on the base and the colors pulsate eerily through the plastic tubes. For extra fun pick up a handful of MPC spacemen and stand them around on the platform. Wow!
Today, Astrolites are plentiful and affordable on sales and auction sites. You can find them boxed and often in good working condition with most of their pieces for well under $50. Sometimes you need to replace the 40 watt light bulb but other than that they are almost always still fully functioning.
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.
