Search Results for "littlebits"

The conversation about GoldieBlox clearly touched a nerve with me, maybe because I am working so hard to instill the concept in my daughter that she can do anything without actually knocking her over the head with the idea that she can do anything.  Because once you do that, it works the other way.  She also receives the message that if it was important enough to convince her, it means that there are people out there who think she can’t do certain things.  And lest you think that kids don’t pick up messages underneath messages, consider the fact that it doesn’t occur to us to also tell boys that they can anything.  I know, I know, you believe that they’ll get that message inadvertently from society anyway.  But here’s the thing; they get that message because they are never given a different message.

I call it the “You Can Do Anything!” Paradox.  By telling them they can do anything, they learn immediately that if they need to be told it, they maybe can’t do everything.*

So I prefer to treat my daughter as I treat my son.  I don’t tell either of them that they can do anything.  I just let them exist and navigate, and I instill in them a healthy understanding that other people’s messages — good or bad — shouldn’t hold much weight.  Either their self-esteem comes from within, or we need to take the “self” out of self-esteem.  And really, once you do that, you leave your kid open to a host of other problems creating dependency on external validation.

But that’s not really the point of this post.

The conversation about GoldieBlox took place on this blog and Facebook and Twitter and email.  And one of those emails was from someone at littleBits, which I’ve heard called the “Lego of electronics.”  We were talking about gender-specific toys, and she asked me if my kids (both of them) would like to try littleBits.  She would send me a set**.

I showed it to the kids online, who immediately started throwing out ideas of what they would build with the littleBits.  And the ChickieNob instated a bunch of rules about the toy, claiming she got to play with it first since if this was tied to GoldieBlox in any way, shape, or form, she was discussed in my post more than her brother (and had been asked to watch the video to get her take on the toy) and therefore should get first dibs on this toy.  She may have also had a bunch of diabolical plans.  Either/or.

We watched the littleBits come toward our house by the tracking number. (One thing I will say for the company, they are beyond responsive and helpful.  That makes a difference in my mind.  Lego too pops up immediately as a company that has such great customer support for their electronic items that it’s worth buying them just because you know you’ll have the safety net if you can’t figure something out.) And on the day it arrived in town, the twins implored me to get the box before they came home from school so they could hit the ground running.

That is true toy excitement.

I met the kids at the school with the box tucked under my arm.  And the most bizarre thing happened.  I felt like the girl in a Brat Pack movie who walks through the school in slow-motion after her transformation and all the cool kids are suddenly paying attention to her.  Fine, maybe I was walking at a normal pace, but every kid who passed me and saw that box under my arm screamed out, “YOU HAVE A LITTLEBITS!” (Except for one child who inexplicably said, “no fair!”)  It made me feel so cool.

When we got home, the Wolvog had to practice guitar (and he knew he’d have an uninterrupted hour and a half with the toy while his sister was at art), so the ChickieNob and I sat down and opened the box.  We read all the instructions and cracked up at being congratulated for our analness.  I promised her that she couldn’t do anything “wrong” and electrocute herself, so she took a deep breath and dug down into the box to make the back massager.

The blocks are very easy to use — and I say that as a Geek Immigrant with no background (or comfort) with engineering.  They are clearly marked, the magnets only attach one way, and the instructions are very straightforward.  I won’t say “simple” because engineering isn’t really simple.  But they’re straightforward: you will not be able to mess this up or get confused.

The ChickieNob’s initial thoughts were that she really liked the colours (all the pieces are colour coded so you know your input from your output) and the fact that the instructions were written on the blocks themselves.  She thought they looked pick-up-able — they made you want to hold them.  I made her try out building the massager herself since she has a tendency to say “can’t” before she has ever tried.  It was worth it because of the expression on her face when she got it working after about five minutes of work. (It’s one of the first, easiest things to try out.)  She popped a muscle to show how powerful she felt, and she shrieked out, “I’m strong!”

LittleBits created a monster because later that night, after she was done with dinner, she informed me that she was going back to her workshop.  She had one moment where she called out that her drawer alarm wasn’t working, and I told her to figure it out herself.  A few minutes later, we got the happy shriek, “I did it!”  I love littleBits because they’re a toy that makes her feel empowered.  They are just on this side of being non-intimidating; meaning, they look difficult but kids can figure them out on their own.  And when they do, they feel cool.

We’re using the littleBits this week as a kick-off for each of my Hour of Code workshops this week. (Yes, Hour of Code begins tomorrow.  So do something computer-related this week!)  The ChickieNob is actually going to be the one to show the kids because she is finally getting the concept of how order matters when it comes to coding (and everything else in life).  The fine details matters.  One character missing can change everything.  Putting the littleBits in the wrong order is an easy way to convey to kids order of operations.

And I love that the ChickieNob asked if she — not me — could be the one to show the rest of the kids this concept in robotics.  Sure, babe, take center stage.

It’s expensive — most computer-related/engineering toys are.  But I think it’s worth the cost because the kids are still playing with it without being prompted.  That speaks volumes to me because a lot of times, they’ll play with something once or twice and set it aside until I remind them to use it again.  It comes with about 16 projects to build in the box, but if you go online, the box boasts 600,000 combinations, and the projects are limitless in terms of how people have used the littleBits.  It’s a very versatile toy that grows with the kid.  Right now, the twins are focused on making an electronic pet.  But I could see them using this well into middle school/high school to make all sorts of things that light up, make sounds, and move.

On a side note — littleBits is a company created by an M.I.T. educated woman — Ayah Bdeir — who had the idea according to the New York Times “of making electronics components into Lego-like bricks that could be used by anybody, even the technically ungifted.”  So, like GoldieBlox, it’s a woman trying to get more girls involved in engineering.  But does so without a hint of pink or a loud message that THIS IS FOR GIRLS!  Instead, she says, “this is for anyone, especially the technically ungifted.”  She does it without using the word “just,” which is essentially a put-down. (I was really turned off by the “more than just a princess” tagline from GoldieBlox since it places a value both on whatever that “more” is as well as “princess.”  We don’t need to be anti-something in order to be pro-something else.  Let’s support both girls who value engineering and girls who reject engineering and love princesses.)  And she doesn’t make the assumption that girls only want to play with other girls or that boys only want to play with other boys.  She just lumps us all into two categories — those that know circuits and those that don’t.  And I’m totally okay with raising my hand and saying, “no engineering background; so I’m in that category.”

* Think about it this way.  If I say to you, “Those jeans look great on you.  They don’t make your body look strange at all.”  Your first thought will be, “These jeans work.”  And your second thought will be, “Wait, does that mean some of my other jeans don’t work?  I didn’t know any of my jeans made my body look strange.  But if she’s bringing that up, she must think that some of my other jeans make my body look strange, but these are a good fit.”

P.S. If anyone knows where I can get a good pair of jeans…

Just kidding.

Not kidding.

** I never do reviews, therefore I haven’t paid much attention to all FCC update on disclosure, but hopefully sticking it smack in the middle of the post will make it clear.  She asked if she could send me a set.  She didn’t ask me to write about it.  I asked her if she was cool with me writing about it.  She said yes.  I wrote my honest opinion of littleBits.

I went to see a performance of Our Town.  Even though I’ve seen the play many times, I still started sniffling when George and Emily went out for the ice cream sodas.  And I was full-out wailing by the time we got to the cemetery.

I know some people think Our Town is maudlin and others think it’s obvious, but the former has no heart and the latter has no sense.  “Do any human beings ever realize life while they live it?”  I am typing this post and this moment holds no weight because I have no clue what will happen next.  That is what makes life so heartbreaking; that we have no way of really absorbing life.  That most minutes bounce off our skin like oil meeting vinegar.  How many times on a normal day do you tell yourself to take a moment to marvel at the world around you?  I can tell you how many times I do that every day.  Zero.  Because Emily is right: humans are blind.

When we got home, I heard ChickieNob speaking in the kitchen with Josh.  “It was so loud.  I looked over because I thought dozens of people were crying.  But it was just mum.”

Because it’s that sad.

*******

I got what just may be the coolest surprise gift ever.  I went to get the mail and there was a package.  I was expecting a small envelope with a thumb drive for work, but this was a huge box.  And it had a scary picture on the cardboard.

But I opened it because I’m not that bright, and it turned out to be the coolest littleBits set!  It’s their new Code Kit.  You can build the project using the littleBits and then program it using a drag-and-drop, Blockly-like coding language.  It transmits the program wirelessly from the computer to the project.

I haven’t gotten a chance to build anything yet because the twins stole the box from me.  But I’m totally going to build Linus his very own electronic guinea pig friend with a LED face!  Because that won’t freak out my guinea pig at all.  Though I suppose I should do something more productive with it like take it to our coding club and have the kids get to try it out.  But first, an electronic guinea pig!

I don’t like the sound of this at all

Thank you, littleBits!

Image: DJ Ghost via Flickr

The ChickieNob and I love naming things.  I have one of those 10,001 Baby Name books that I use for naming characters, and we like to go through it together, pointing out our favourite names.  I keep a running list of favourite names in the front of my notebook just in case we’re away from the book and quickly need to name something.  We like naming things so much that sometimes we rename things: our nicknames have nicknames.

Since we have exhausted all the inanimate objects in our house, we are now turning to your house.  We’d like to name your Elf on a Shelf.

We don’t want an elf; we just want to name one.

Or two.  Or twenty.  We’ll name as many as you like.  If your elf already has a name or you also don’t want an elf in your house, never fear.  We’re also happy to name teapots, toothbrushes, or various stuffed animals.  We’re not picky.

We get that Elf on a Shelf is a treasured family tradition, and we get that most people would like to name their own elf, thank you very much.  But what about our naming needs?  We have deep, overwhelming naming needs and nothing to bestow with a moniker at the moment.

The last thing we got to name was the littleBits arduino that we got.  We named it Aviato after the company on Silicon Valley.  It was sort of a rushed job; a quick naming just because we wanted to start programming it.  I don’t want you to think that we’ll do a similar job naming your elf.  We’ll take our time.  Really think hard.

It’s just that since the arduino, we’re in a dry spell.  I mean, yes, we can rename our dreidels once again, but it’s not the same thing as naming your elf (or other items).

Just answer the following questions in our information-gathering quiz below in the comment section.  After all, we don’t want to name your elf Ethel and then discover that Ethel will be residing in a very modern-looking living room.  Or name your elf Edward and then discover that you’re Team Jacob.  After you answer the questions, we will think long and hard about the best name for your elf and email it to you.  In the case of non-elves, maybe leave a link to a picture so we can see what we’re working with.  We’d hate to give your teapot the name Alma and find out that it totally looks like a Tiffany, you know?

1. Would you rather go to the beach, a museum, hiking in the woods, or a loud party?

2. Describe the ideal paint colour for your living room.  Is it the colour that is currently on your walls or your dream colour?

3. You walk into an ice cream store that has every flavour ever made.  What flavour do you order?

4. Do you have pictures of family on the walls, photographs of places, or no art whatsoever?

5. Tell us your favourite book.  Or one of your favourite books.

6. Do you like classic or creative names?

7. Movie or television character you’d most like to be stuck next to on a long flight.

8. Is the elf (or object) male, female, or gender-neutral?  (We’re only giving you three options due to space, so please be more specific with gender if you need another category.)

Update: The ChickieNob looked at the comments and emails and told Josh, “I have a gazillion things to name!” (Three cheers to hyperbole!)  Unfortunately, she also had a lot of math homework (which she should probably do if she thinks gazillion is a real number). It was Common Core math which meant that a good ten minutes were spent trying to figure out this new way to do multiplication, which feels as if it was made-up in a fever dream.  She has this under control and is just finishing up all those mandatory things (such as math homework) before she starts the naming process.  So keep those naming requests coming.

Can I tell you about my new toy?  Because I really really love it, and the potential it holds to really mess with the twins educate the people around me.  I love my new toy*.

I was talking with someone at littleBits and they told me they would send me their new space kit if I wanted to write about it.  Why, yes, I would like to try it out and write about it.  So I waited impatiently patiently for the toy to be delivered, hitting refresh on the tracking screen every two seconds drinking a cup of tea.  And then one day, it arrived.

Let me start by saying that though the age range on the box is 14 to infinity, I’ve already played with my friend’s four-year-old. (I bumped into my friend and her daughter while getting my mail so she got to be the first person to play with it.)  While she may not have gotten some of the larger concepts discussed in the accompanying booklet on light or sound, she certainly could follow the step-by-step instructions and construct the circuits.  And I guess that’s where I need to begin: the set is easy enough that an engineering-challenged middle-age woman a four-year-old can put the projects together, though it will be enjoyed on a very different level by women children eight and above.  Yes, I disagree with littleBits and would go as young as eight years old in using this set to understand concepts in science.  In fact, I’ve been using littleBits in our school for second grade and up.

The twins and I sat down and did some of the warm-up circuits.  We hooked up the microphone and speaker and spoke to each other in creepy, breathy whispers as if we were crank-calling each other across the table.

We hooked up the light reader, and the twins endured learning the amount of light in various parts of the room.

But my favourite warm-up circuit involved pulling together a remote trigger hooked up to my iPhone so I could turn on the music from any point in the room using the remote control from our television.  Can you imagine the fun I could have with this?  Record myself heavily breathing into a voice memo, leave it under their bed, and then hit play from the hallway?  I just realized that the only picture I took was when I had hooked up the remote trigger to the DC motor.  So imagine this set-up sans DC motor/avec my iPhone.

My favourite moment of play was when we created a wave generator and the twins could hear, feel, and see sound… all at the same time.  We first read the introduction to energy, and then we set up the circuit which allowed us to listen to Katy Perry’s “Roar,” touch a speaker to feel the vibrations, and finally attach a plastic spoon to the speaker and fill it with water so we could see the waves in the liquid.  We observed the waves becoming deeper and more defined as the volume went up, and then barely noticeable when we turned the volume down.  I wish I had taken a photo of the look on their faces when they saw the waves in the spoon.  That is science coming to life, becoming relevant, feeling tangible.

The kids have done many more of the projects on their own, including creating a spectrum and then dragging their friends into the hallway bathroom so they could see said spectrum.  And the Wolvog is eying the Mars Rover project to complete for next year’s science fair.

But forget the kids.  Can we talk about me for a second?  I came up with a great writing project involving the littleBits space kit; a science/writing hybrid project that our principal agreed I could bring to the school next year.  Because I believe that kids learn best when they have something tangible to manipulate, and what is writing beyond a circuit involving words?  Writing is a structured process with a flexible formula.  And how better to illustrate that than with a science project that kids can feel and observe?  Oooooh, I am so excited!

Thank you, littleBits, for giving me a chance to try out the set.  Because it not only gave me hours of entertaining ways I can mess with the twins the twins hours of educational play, but because you gave our whole school this really easy way to explain how to add depth to their writing assignments.  And yes, that is the next frontier: using littleBits to teach writing.  You’re already taking over the music scene; next you have to spread to words.

* I decided this one was my toy, but I’d let the twins play with it.

So I’ve been running Hour of Code in the twins’ school (which, for me, is more like 12 hours of code as each class shuffles through), and on Wednesday, I ate lunch at their table in the cafeteria.  I was already there when their class came in and paused, staring at me.

“Oh hey,” I told a random girl who sat down near me.  “I’m Melissa.  I’m repeating third grade.”

She looked at the twins for explanation, but they just shrugged.  One of their friends squinted at me.  “No, you’re not.  You must be here for something else.”

“Nope,” I told him, cheerfully.  “Here to repeat third grade.  Didn’t do it that well the first time around and only realized that this week.  So, here I am.  Ready to do it all over again.”

And the best part was that for the next twenty minutes, they politely included me as one of their own, explaining what I would be doing now that I was an official third grader.  I will apparently learn all about a bird that can make a sound like a chainsaw, a few useful phrases in Spanish, and how to play the recorder.

Bring it on!

*******

A long time ago, I did a sugar art demonstration in a nursery school.  Years later, I was in the grocery store one morning, and there was a group of kids there on a field trip from a local elementary school, and as I passed them in the produce section, I heard a boy say, “that is the woman with all the sugar!”  It was a kid who had seen my demonstration in nursery school!

Lesson learned: Sugar makes an impression.

So the amusing, parallel part to leading Hour of Code is that as I return to the school day after day and I lead the workshop, I can hear kids talking about me: “that’s the woman who has all the electronics!”  To be fair, I am schleping around a big bag filled with a computer, littleBits, thumb drives, math books, and a tablet with a stylus.

But it made me feel cool, like the Pied Piper of Circuits.

*******

This is it, your last chance.  The 2013 Creme de la Creme closes to submissions on December 15th at night.  Anything that comes is after 11 pm ET will not be on the list… ever.  As in, this is it.  If you want to be part of the Creme de la Creme for 2013, submit now.  On Sunday, the list will be finalized, and it will go up on January 1st.

*******

I always feel like I need to mention that it’s Friday the 13th when the Roundup falls on Friday the 13th.  As I wrote last time this occurred:

Though I’m usually fairly anxious around certain dates, allowing my imagination to run towards grotesquely disturbing scenarios, I’ve never had big feelings concerning Friday the 13th.  Even if I live … like … 2 miles from Camp Crystal Lake and I totally know someone who knows someone who is the cousin of the counselor who decapitated Mrs. Voorhees.

It’s one of those dates that I feel like I should have big feelings about.  If I’m not worried, then I must be a fool.

You know how girls pinched each other’s arms with a Cootie Shot to ward off boy germs?  Mentioning that it’s Friday the 13th feels like a horror Cootie Shot.

Do you care about Friday the 13th or are you not superstitious about the date?

*******

And now the blogs…

But first, second helpings of the posts that appeared in the open comment thread last week.  In order to read the description before clicking over, please return to the open thread:

• “The Dread of Advent” (Through the Ardennes)
• “Christmas.  It’s Coming.  Again” (By the Brooke)
• “The Best I Can” (For My Sweet Boy, Jonah)
• “Courage for the Present” (Work is for Suckers)
• “I am not a loosey goosey come-what-may kind of lady” (I’m Polycystic Inside)
• “I Don’t Know Your Story” (A Sky for Blue)
• “20 Ways” (Where the *Bleep* is Our Stork?)

Okay, now my choices this week.

Anabegins has a post about shaking up her life.  Believe me, she could have been describing my life when she writes, “I’m no good at change. I get stuck in a rut and start to really like my rut, and get all cozy and comfortable with my rut, and suddenly its like ‘my beloved rut, don’t leave me!!’ You get the point.”  Oh, yes, I do.  Which is why I’m impressed with all the changes she hopes to make.  As she says, she put it online so she feels accountable.  Seems like a good time of year to do your own post about what you’d like to change in 2014.

My Lady of the Lantern has a post about waiting (or not?) for your period.   It’s clever, but it’s also veeeeeeeeery familiar; those phantom pregnancy signs.  (Is it?  Or isn’t it?) And the fact that your period always seems to show on the least opportune day.

Lastly, From IF to When has a post about understanding someone infertile.  She tackles common misconceptions, addressing both the myth and the reality.  Infertile people don’t hate those who conceive easily, nor do we want to avoid kids at all costs.  It’s a great post that you may want to leave open on someone’s computer screen by “accident.”  Just sayin’…

The roundup to the Roundup: I’m a third grader!  Or the lady who has all the electronics.  The 2013 Creme de la Creme is closing.  It’s Friday the 13th.  And lots of great posts to read.  So what did you find this week?  Please use a permalink to the blog post (written between December 6th and December 13th) and not the blog’s main url. Not understanding why I’m asking you what you found this week?  Read the original open thread post here.