I built a fan Board, plus some pedagogical musings

Here's my latest Board - built from a fan pulled out of a dead computer power supply.

Fan Board with "long" cable. 

I left the USB cable full length this time to see how that works for Adam.

It's a 12 volt fan running from only 5 volts so it doesn't have enough power to hurt if you stick your fingers in to. And... of course there's an LED on there too.

I was hoping to find a smaller fan that would fit properly onto a block - but this is all I had in my junk box.

Pedagogy

My wife is a teacher and therefore is interested how these Little Boards relate to existing ideas around teaching and learning. What ideas can these help to teach? What is Adam learning when he's using them?

Here's some random thoughts:

• A switch is used to turn things on - just like a light switch, TV switch, many toys etc
• A battery (ie power) is needed - like in many toys
• Creativity is required to assemble/construct a project from individual bits/Boards/components. 
• You can develop an understanding of what each Board does as you are building something. You do not need to understand the basics before starting - but it helps to have someone handy to explain why it doesn't work.
• You can learn a lot when it doesn't work.
• Because Little Boards are glued on to Lego Duplo they come with a strong implication of being used with other Duplo blocks.
• The circuit is not the goal. A creative something is the goal, of which Little Boards are one part.
• It's fun to just watch outputs (LED's, propellers, fans etc).
• By piggybacking onto Duplo my Little Boards have co-opted some of the creative habitat that a child uses Duplo in - often all over the floor.

She also wondered how they are different from things like "BrainBox" electronic kits.  

• Electronic kits come with a book full of interesting circuits to build. The implication is that your goal will be to build one of the prescribed goals.
• Little Boards are more open ended.
• BrainBox type kits define the "build space" to be on the base board provided.
• My wife observed Adam build a BrainBox siren circuit (with help) at Playcenter and then take it out onto a trike in the playground. Clearly a child can quite happily take a BrainBox and "run with it" outside the context in which it was built.

One of the interesting things I like about the littleBits promotion is the emphasis on using the Bits with all sorts of craft materials to make things that contain littleBits. They're trying to add electronic boards into the notion of "making crafty stuff" with/by kids - along with cardboard, sellotape, straws, felt pens, etc. This is a powerful appropriation.