An educational toy company has teamed up with NASA to offer a kit of electronic modules that will let children build snap-together versions of technologies and devices real astronauts use.
LittleBits, working with NASA engineers and scientists, has introduced a Space Kit, a new offering in its line of color-coded modules that includes motors, sensors, displays and buzzers that snap together magnetically, allowing kids to experiment with electronics.
The $189 kit includes 12 modules, with five NASA lesson plans for building things like a miniature Mars rover or a tiny satellite.
Among the offered modules are a LED display, DC motor, microphone and speaker, plus a module that can receive input from a remote control.
In addition to creating devices following the provided plans, children can mix and match the modules to create devices of their own, which they can share on the LittleBits website and see things created by other kids, students and teachers.
"We're taking one field at a time where technology is prevalent but people don't really understand it, then we're breaking it down and giving people the bricks so they can participate in it," LittleBits founder Ayah Bdeir says.
NASA approached LittleBits about a year and a half ago, she says, asking the New York company to create a kit that would make it fun for kids to learn about space.
"In the beginning it was really sitting down with them and being like, why do you work at NASA? What's cool about what you do?" Bdeir says.
LittleBits and NASA worked together to create instructions for projects that, while actually quite sophisticated, where easy to understand and build, she says.
"The booklet looks unassuming and unintimidating intentionally, but in fact it's pretty hardcore science that's in there," she says. "It's just presented to you in a way that draws you in instead of scares you off."
LittleBits' Space Kit is the company's third offering after block sets that were focused on lighting and music. The firm has created and released around 50 different modules, but since they can all work together, Bdeir points out, there are "literally tens of millions of possible circuits you could create. From a small number of blocks, you get a whole universe of possibilities."
