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Comment by VectorLock | Hacker News Reader

I'm always skeptical of these 'no solder circuits for kids' systems you see everywhere but building them into the LEGO standard is a refreshingly good idea.

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I'm not sure why Lego themselves didn't make Lego-based breadboards. Seems like a fairly straightforward idea.

Flat breadboard with conductive "lanes". Bricks with electric parts. Flat pieces with conductors. Conductivity in bricks would normally go from top to bottom, so you could easily stack things or connect them from the top side, without adding stuff to breadboard.

Would be great even for "adult" prototyping. No more wire spaghetti or bent pins.

Bonus points for "empty" bricks you could solder your own parts into. You do it once and get a reusable part.

Actually... https://www.bricklink.com/v2/catalog/catalogitem.page?P=4758...

Before Mindstorms there was a 9V system. It was really basic though: batteries, lights, motors, sirens, and wires.

The Mindstorms RCX used that same contact system and had light, rotation, and touch sensors as well.

They've had drag-and-drop programmable controllers for at least 18 years, along with electrical bricks with motors, batteries, speed controllers, lights, light detectors, touch sensors, etc. Lego mindstorms.

I'd love to see how expressive they are. Many times, these kits are really good at building exactly what's in the directions, and not much else. Would love to see some blogger or other independent to get a kit and play around. Contrasting it to LittleBits and Mindstorm would be useful.

That said, this isn't the first time i've seen this company. They had a few other kits that were interesting and I almost bought them but my kids are a bit too young. I hope they continue to grow and are around in a few years.

I yearn for the return of Denshi blocks:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denshi_block

I think a modern update with microcontroller/digital-microelectronics would be awesome.

I really wonder why this hasn't been mashed with the Maker/rPi crowd, and we don't have Denshi blocks for the kids these days. Seems like a no-brainer ..

Yeah, I was soldering little kits at a pretty young age. With proper supervision it feels you might as well have the kid really go for it, or have them direct the parent and lead them through the soldering process, while the parent performs the actual connection, showing proper technique and safety, including ventilation etc.

Not all parents know how to solder.

I'm pretty sure most parents could learn basic soldering in an hour or two.

Maybe, but it acts as another barrier.

I can't see when I'd find an hour or two undisturbed to learn to solder! And it's not something you want to be doing with younger kids around necessarily - even though the older of your children might be old enough to learn to solder, you may still be looking after younger children. Even with something as simple as getting out all the painting stuff, I have to be the right frame of mind to be able to cope with the chaos and mess!

Soldering would make the toy permanent into whatever configuration it was soldered into. This allows for undoing, redoing, rinse, lather, repeat. That's what makes it fun. You do it once and use solder, you learn that you can follow directions and work a soldering iron. These type of "toys" can lead to experimenting by undoing, and then connecting to something else.

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