Each has a small circuit board mounted on it and - where appropriate - suitable controls to allow you to affect Two i31 oscillator modules are supplied with the kit. LittleBits modules each have a single function, and they snap together using magnets and a physical male/female architecture to ensure that they're connected the right way around. As is often the case, overnight success appears to have taken years of hard graft. She developed the first littleBits prototypes in 2008 and it took a further three years before the first modules were ready for sale. Mind you, it hasn't all been plain sailing. But despite this odd combination of skills and even odder nomenclature, her success - and that of her company - is laudable littleBits has been cited as one of 'CNN's Top 10 Emerging Startups To Watch'. LittleBits (small 'l', capital 'B') is an American company founded by Ayah Bdeir, a graduate of the MIT Media Lab who describes herself as an engineer and interactive artist. All of which brings us to the littleBits Synth Kit. It has been many decades since I played with Lego, and only one fewer since those early experiments with the EMS but, in all that time, it never occurred to me that the two concepts could be combined. Now let's fast-forward to the present day. I spent months working out how to wring usable sounds out of this so, by the time I was 18, I was pretty confident (rightly or wrongly) that I could patch an acceptable trumpet, flute, violin, lead synth, bass or sound effect on any synth placed in front of The p1 power module. It should therefore come as no surprise that the second synth I ever used was an EMS Synthi AKS, which eschewed pre-patched signal paths and provided a set of modules that had to be inter-connected using patch pins before any sound could be heard. Some of my earliest memories involve boxes of Lego and Bilofix, and a trip to see the stunning window displays in the Meccano shop in Vienna was one of my favourite pre-pubescent days out. In truth, the signs were therefrom the start. But as someone who can spend hours trying to work out why a particular acoustic instrument sounds as it does, and yet more attempting to recreate it on a synthesizer, I fear that I am not just a card-carrying member of the fraternity, but a Companion of the High Council. What's not to like?Īs an adult male who plays football, has a girlfriend, and whose acne-ridden days are long past, I don't view myself as a geek. No one complained about the longer time it took to build the projects (and parents might find the longer build time a plus).Korg and littleBits have joined forces to make what's basically analogue Lego. Our 7-year-old tester liked the extra challenge the instructions provided, while the 10-year-old gave up on following them and built a project freestyle. These build times were longer than those for our top-pick Smart Labs kit because we found it more difficult to read the Snap Circuits instructions, not because the projects were more advanced. The projects we tried took our kid testers between three minutes (to build a light switch) and seven minutes (to build a voice sensor). You can make a fan launch into the air or produce sounds like music and sirens with a speaker. It’s enough for several hours of playtime, but many of the projects are similar, with only minor changes to the build process. However, the instructions cover 100 sample projects, the most of any kit we tested. When you exclude the connecting parts and count just the modular electronic pieces, this Snap Circuits kit is similar in size than our top pick from SmartLabs. We found that the best kits struck a balance between education and fun, holding kids’ attention while walking them through how to use the kit. In the classroom, many groups started by putting together pieces in ways that looked interesting, and then were reluctant to take them apart to start over when they found they didn’t work like they expected. Freeform play is a good thing when a child knows what they are doing, but if they don’t learn the basics of using a kit, their play won’t result in something that works, which can make them lose interest faster. Instructions that were interesting but not very educational sometimes held the kids’ attention but didn’t give them a clear picture of what they were doing-or led to freeform playing with the kit. During our testing panels, instructions that were too dry and wordy caused kids to feel overwhelmed or to lose interest in our first round of testing, they sometimes asked an adult to complete the rest of the project or wandered back to a different kit. We also considered the educational value of the instructions and if they were able to hold the builder’s attention. We evaluated how well each kit’s instructions explained the steps to build each project.
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