littleBits has had a working relationship with NASA for sometime, but today they have partnered together and unleashed the Space Kit. It combines the electronic modules from littleBits with projects, lesson plans, and activates that were made by NASA scientists and engineers. The Space Kit is the latest kit from littleBits and for those who haven’t heard of them before, their mission to make everyone an inventor by putting electronics in their hands. Basically they make understanding and learning about electronics simple, educational, and fun. This is done through all of the different modules and kits that they offer. They offer an open source library that is filled with electronics modules, lesson plans, and more. You might be thinking that electronic modules require wiring, soldering, programing, but with littleBits they take this out of the equation. You can create, prototype, and invent out of the box with their modules that snap together with magnets that are built inside.
The Space Kit will allow you to build and control a model Mars Rover, send music to your own miniature International Space Station, and much more. This promotes the students or whomever is using the littleBits modules interests in STEAM or Science, Technology, Engineering, Art and Mathematics. NASA and littleBits have partnered on building activities that are based around these STEAM topics, like robotics, physics, astronomy, and energy. On top of the lesson plans that are included in the box, there are hundreds more available for free online. With the Space Kit you can learn how we communication with spacecrafts, see how satellites sense gas in the atmosphere, and much more.
With the launch of the Space Kit, come three new modules, which are included in the kit. Those being an IR LED or infrared light-emitting diode module, a number module, and lastly a remote trigger. You can combine all of the 12 modules included in the Space Kit with regular household objects and with your imagination the possibilities become endless. The Space Kit is available now from www.littleBits.cc and retails for $189.99. You can see a gallery and the full press release below.
Gallery
Press Release
littleBitsTM PARTNERS WITH NASA ON EARTH AND SPACE ACTIVITIES !
Brings the Fun and Power of Space Exploration to the Hands of Everyone
NEW YORK, New York, April 24, 2014 – Following a working relationship with NASA, lit- tleBitsTM today introduced the littleBits Space Kit for Earth and space science explorers. With littleBits’ powerful electronic modules, coupled with projects and activities designed by NASA scientists and engineers, anyone can discover the fun and power of Earth and space science in the classroom or at home. More information about the littleBits Space Kit can be found at www.littleBits.cc
The littleBits platform takes complicated and relatively inaccessible fields — first electronics, then music with the littleBits Synth Kit, and now space exploration — and makes them fun and accessible to everyone. littleBits makes an open source library of electronic modules that snap together with magnets. No soldering, wiring, or programming is required to create, prototype and invent. Today, with the littleBits Space Kit and NASA-designed projects, anyone can build and remotely control a model Mars Rover, wirelessly send music to their own International Space Station model, and observe and measure our universe – just like real scientists.
“With the days old discovery of earth-like planet Kepler-186f, SpaceX’s successful docking at the International Space Station, recent evidence of the Big Bang, and the introduction of Neil deGrasse Tyson’s new “Cosmos” documentary, space is more than ever at the center of the cul- tural conversation,” said Ayah Bdeir, littleBits founder and CEO. “Yet our relationship to space remains distant. With the littleBits Space Kit, we aim to bring space closer to home by putting the building blocks to invent, learn and explore directly into the hands of educators, students, NASA enthusiasts and builders of all ages.”
To promote student interest in Science, Technology, Engineering, Art and Mathematics (STEAM), littleBits and NASA have partnered on activities around the fundamentals of energy, robotics, wireless data transmission, physics, astronomy and more STEAM topics. Ex- plorers can now learn how scientists communicate with a spacecraft billions of kilometers away, transmit electromagnetic energy, see sound energy and explore first-hand how the AURA satellite senses gases in our atmosphere – plus hundreds more lessons and projects available for free online.
“NASA is thrilled to partner with littleBits and bring the power and technology of space to every- one,” said Blanche Meeson, chief of higher education for NASA’s Science and Exploration Di- rectorate at Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md. “Through littleBits, anyone will have the opportunity to create, learn and explore like NASA scientists and engineers, but from their home or classroom.”
About the littleBits Space Kit
The Space Kit is part of a larger littleBits open source library that breaks down electronics into simple but powerful modules and makes everyone an inventor. Developed in collaboration with NASA and designed for ages 14 to infinity, the Space Kit includes 12 modules, five NASA lesson plans and 10 hands-on projects spanning multiple areas of NASA science and engineering. The Space Kit launches with three new modules — IR LED, Number and Remote Trigger. These new modules will be available to purchase separately starting today and can be used with any of the modules in the extended littleBits library to create trillions of circuit combinations.
