Everyone knows about those big brightly colored blocks that babies and toddlers play with. Well, those are sooooo 20th century. Now parents can give their little geniuses-to-be Cubelets: toy blocks that snap together with magnets and unlock interesting electronic powers, like sensors, motors, and data displays. Take that, Baby Einstein!
Cubelets Engineering Prototypes from eric schweikardt on Vimeo.
Cubelets are a spin-off project of Carnegie Mellon's Computational Design Lab, which developed them as "modules of a computational construction kit to scaffold learning math, science and control theory." Which is is a less-fun way of saying "blocks that let you build awesome robots and stuff."
The genius behind Cubelets lies in their flexibility: each block's function is extended and defined by the other blocks you magnetically attach to it. Snap a knob cube to a bar-graph cube, and boom, you've got a cool little light-toy. Even better: snap that to a motor cube with some wheels, and presto, instant robot. Using a kit of 20 blocks, you can build all kinds of funky little machines and doodads -- no instruction manual required.
That last part is what separates truly educational toys like Cubelets from tricked-up junk like Baby Einstein: kids learn by playing and exploring the design of the system on their own, not according to some adult's proscriptions. Do they need to know that Cubelets contain intense techno-stuff like actuators, logic boards, and photosensors? Nah. All they need to know is that when you snap 'em together, they seem to come alive -- in predictable, but surprising and complex, ways.
The electronic "brain" of a Cubelet.
If that sounds suspiciously like Computer Programming 101, that's because it is. But who says you need fancy programming languages to learn how to code? By making programming abstractions concrete and physical, Cubelets intuitively introduce kids to one of the most powerful creative tools that humans have ever invented.
The Cubelets will be available next month, and the set costs $300 here.
COMMENTARY: WOW! Robotic leggo's. The kids (and adults) will go crazy over Cubelets. I am predicting that Cublet's will become the hottest new toy to hit the market since Star Wars and Transformers.
Quick Overview
The cubelets standard kit comes with 20 magnetic blocks that can be snapped together to make an endless variety of robots with no programming and no wires. You can build robots that drive around on a tabletop, respond to light, sound, and temperature, and have surprisingly lifelike behavior. But instead of programming that behavior, you snap the cubelets together and watch the behavior emerge like with a flock of birds or a swarm of bees.
Each cubelet in the kit has different equipment on board and a different default behavior. There are Sense Blocks that act like our eyes and ears; they can sense light, temperature, and how far they are away from other objects. Just like with people, the senses are the inputs to the system.
On the flip side, the Action Blocks act as outputs. They do things. Some have little motors inside of them so that they can drive around or spin one of their faces. There are blocks that make noise, shine a flashlight, or display their information through a light-up bar graph.
Which cubelets are in the Standard Kit?
- Action Blocks: 2 Drive, 1 Rotate, 1 Speaker, 1 Flashlight, 1 Bar Graph
- Sense Blocks: 1 Knob, 1 Brightness, 2 Distance, 1 Temperature
- Think/Utility Blocks: 2 Inverse, 1 Minimum, 1 Maximum, 1 Battery, 2 Passive, 2 Blocker
Each cubelet has a tiny computer inside of it and is a robot in its own right. So when you put blocks together, you're actually making a robot out of several smaller robots. Each block communicates with its neighbors, so you know that if two blocks are next to each other, they're talking. If you make a simple robot by connecting a Light Sensor block to a Speaker block, they'll start to talk, and when the light in the room gets brighter, the Speaker will get louder. Actually, you'd need a third block to make this work: every robot needs a Battery block to run. Next, you could swap the Speaker for a Drive block, and when the light gets brighter, the robot will drive faster. A third category of blocks is the Think Blocks: maybe you’d want to put an Inverse block in between the Light Sensor and Drive blocks. Then, the robot would drive slower as the light gets brighter. This simple communication between adjacent blocks is what gives the kit a little bit of magic.
Cubelets are designed for people age 8 and older.
Questions? Find some answers in the Cubelets FAQ.
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