Hasta La Gadget!

Dan Shapiro’s Robot Turtles board game Kickstarter showed there is serious appetite for kids’ games that aren’t just fun to play with but also sneakily teach core coding principles. Instead of the $25,000 he was aiming for, Shapiro raised more than $630,000. Geeky moms and dads clearly have money, and will spend it on the right bit of educational kit.

With that kind of Kickstarter community response, it’s pretty likely we’re set to see a wave of educational toys doing cool fun stuff with programming principles. To wit, meet Primo: a physical programming interface that teaches children programming logic while they control the movements of an Arduino-powered robot.

All of Primo’s electronics are concealed inside wooden boxes, so from the child’s point of view they’re playing with blocks, a board and a cute little robot. But as they snap the coloured pieces (instruction blocks) into the board (the physical programming interface) they are building up a set of instructions that the wheeled bot will execute when they push the big red button. So they get to see their program come to life as the bot moves around the room and navigates around household objects.

The instruction blocks comprise four different coloured pieces: forward, to move the bot forward; left; right; and the green circular function block. The function block adds a little more complexity to the basic instruction set as it calls the last line of blocks on the board every time it’s called. Aka it’s a sub-routine.

The function element, used in conjunction with the setting of longer physical paths for the robot to complete, then requires kids to use logical thinking to build up longer sequences of instructions to complete the challenge. And that’s the subtle learning it’s hoping to achieve.

It’s certainly a lot more basic than the Kano DIY computer Kickstarter – but the idea is to offer coding ‘baby steps’, for four-to-seven-year-olds, not throw kids in at the deep end.

“Skills are mastered gradually. Mountains are climbed one step at a time. Think of Primo as the very first step in a child’s programming education. Primo provides the very basic ABC of programming logic,” Primo’s U.K.-based (Italian) creators note on their Kickstarter page.

They’re aiming to raise £35,000 to get the kit to market. The full, assembled kit costs £160 to early Kickstarter backers – or £135 for a DIY version that you can self-assemble at home. They’ve already managed to raise more than £5,500 since the campaign kicked off on Friday, with 27 days left to run. If it hits its funding target, they’re aiming to ship to backers next August.

The path from Kickstarter to customers is seldom smooth, and life-logging camera company Narrative (née Memoto) knows that better than most, announcing another hardware issue today that will delay shipping for early backers. According to a message sent to early supporters on the crowdfunding site, issues with camera quality, PCBs, and some of the casing […]

It’s Monday morning at your local coffee shop, and you pause over your vanilla latte to ponder another customer. That face, you think to yourself, I know it. Whipping out your smartphone you check a social networking app, and it’s as you suspected: he’s an opponent. He needs to be dusted.

That’s not a dime-novel thriller setup, it’s Dustcloud — a Zibgbee-powered Urban Warfare game. Using discreet smartphone connected “duster” guns, an online player database and monetized virtual ammunition, Dustcloud proposes turning your everyday world into a Internet of Things battleground.

Filed under: Misc, Internet, Mobile

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Source: Dustcloud (1), (2)

Gone are the days of buttons, switches and dials. We’re all touchscreen and trackpad now. If you’re among those that miss the tactile sensation and precision that switches and toggles offer and have $100 or so burning a hole in your pocket, however, you’re right in the pitching sweet spot for Palette’s Kickstarter campaign. The module controllers daisy chain in the configuration of your choosing to create a customize hardware interface for a number of different scenarios, including gaming, creative suites and even live DJing. Palette’s also offering up a number of aesthetic choices for the controllers, including brushed aluminum and cherry wood — there’s also built in LED lighting, for those impromptu parties you’re no doubt planning. The team behind the creation is shooting for $95,012 over on the crowdfunding site. A pledge of $99 will get you the starter kit, which includes four modules. That’s set to start shipping in June.

Filed under: Peripherals

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Source: Kickstarter

After the super slick Ex1 circuit board 3D printer, say hello to Circuit Scribe: another Kickstarter project aiming to make it easier to prototype electronics by doing away with breadboards and soldering. But this project is taking a deliberately low-tech (and thus low cost) approach – by putting conductive silver ink inside a rollerball pen so you can doodle circuit designs on the back of an envelope.

As well as being conductive (achieving a conductivity of 50-100 milliohms per square per mil), the ink inside the Circuit Scribe pen is water-based and non-toxic, so it’s safe for kids to use in schools – one of the main targets for the project, along with makers, life hackers & artists.

The pen’s U.S.-based creators also claim it scribbles all over the pen-based conductive ink competition – with the ink in their prototype Circuit Scribe pens flowing smoothly from the rollerball as you write, with no need for shaking or squeezing, and no hanging around waiting for lumpy ink traces to dry and accidentally smudging your circuit with your elbow.

Circuit Scribe’s makers are also putting together a selection of components that can be used with the pen to build fully fledged circuits – including basic stuff like LED boards, coin batteries, 9V battery connectors; to more advanced components aimed at makers, such as a potentiometers, RGB LEDs and photo sensors; to a $100 developer kit containing additional components such as a motor, DIY solder boards, DPDT switches and more, for people who want to use the Circuit Scribe in conjunction with tinkering around with boards such as Arduino or Raspberry Pi.

Components can be connected to the conductive ink circuits you’ve drawn on paper by putting a magnetic material behind the paper – or putting it on a refrigerator door – and then snapping the components directly onto the circuit.  

“You can build a circuit with nothing but a coin battery, paper clip, and LED, or build out complex circuits with multiple components,” the startup notes on their campaign page.

Unopened pens will have a shelf-life of about a year, while opened pens will “write smooth” for at least six months (provided you keep them capped and store away from heat sources and tip down when not in use). Each pen is good for 60-80m (262-328 ft) worth of lines, and the lines should keep their conductivity for “years”.

The startup is seeking $85,000 in crowdfunding to get Circuit Scribe to market. It’s already raised more than $22,000 with 40 days left to run. If the campaign hits its target, it’s aiming to ship the pens – and most of the component bundles – out to backers by June 2014.