Educational electronics company littleBits announced a partnership with NASA for a very special littleBits set: the SpaceKit. The SpaceKit is designed to get the next generation of NASA engineers interested in the trade. Like all littleBits, the SpaceKit is solder free, wire free, and doesn’t even require programming knowledge. The kit includes 5 NASA approved lesson plans, 12 modules, and 10 projects. Three of those modules are brand new to littleBits: IR LED, number, and a remote trigger. The kit is also compatible with the terrestrial littleBits modules, allowing you to mix and match. The NASA lessons are based on real world NASA projects like antennas and communicating with satellites
The Space Kit costs $189. They’re on sale now.
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, littleBits 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 satel- lite 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.
About littlebits.cc
Founded in 2011 by MIT graduate, TED Senior Fellow and Cofounder of the Open Hardware Summit Ayah Bdeir, littleBits (www.littleBits.cc) has grown to be a global leader in electronic construction kits. Named one of the Top 10 startups to watch by CNN, littleBits has one mission: to turn everyone into an inventor by putting the power of electronics in the hands of everyone. littleBits has partnered with global supply chain management leader PCH International to pro- duce over seven Kits and over 50 interoperable Bits modules, and the products have been sold in 70 countries around the world. littleBits products have won over 20 product awards including an acquisition into the MoMA (Museum of Modern Art) permanent collection, Dr Toy 10 Best Technology Products, IDEA Gold Award, Parents Choice Gold Award, Academic’s Choice Brain Toy Award, Popular Science Best of Toyfair and Makerfaire Educator Choice Awards. For more info, visit www.littleBits.cc, Facebook at Facebook/littleBitselectronics, or Twitter at @littleBits.
For more information on Space Kit and littleBits, please visit www.littlebits.cc/spacekit
For more information on NASA, please visit www.nasa.gov
