A few more boards: battery Board, switch Board and 12 LED's Board

I've made up a few more boards.

The current circuit designs are the absolute simplest possible - all the switch is doing is turning on/off +5 volts. The littleBits is more sophisticated than that - they're using the signal line to turn off/on the output of a  transistor (actually a an op-amp) which then drives the "output" Bits.

I'm going to keep building along my current track till I run out of things that Adam likes playing with - then maybe change over to some kind of transistor switching system. littleBits are using a LV321 which I can't seem to source from my local Jaycar store so I might using something else.

Anyway, here's what I've built since the last update:

Battery holder on a block. This allows for a much tidier construction.

New three position switch with LEDs. Middle = off, Right = on, Left = momentary on.

Red LED on left is always on when power is connected. Green LED on middle/right is on when switch is on. (I should have positioned it to the far right of the board next to the output end.)

LED output block. Just on or off.

All together. You can never have too many LEDs according to Adam.

At this stage I've noticed a few things:

It is very tempting to think about much more elaborate Blocks. I've seen on the littleBits suggestion forum people asking for Arduino Bits. I think this misses the point of the littleBits idea: simple little Bits. Arduino is small but not simple - in the sense that a 5 year old can understand how littleBits work and what each bit does - but an Arduino is pretty much a magic box for a 5 years old.

Using these things is much more engaging when used in the context of a wider creative ecosystem, ie lego or cardboard and sellotape.

Cheers, Paul