Small Electronic Logic Blocks - eBlocks

eBlocks writes "eBlocks are small low-cost electronic devices that can be easily interconnected for a wide variety of applications such as: detecting motion, light, water, sound or magnetic fields; triggering a buzzer, a light, an electronic relay or a lock. Devices can communicate wirelessly or can be controlled remotely via the internet or a telephone. The eBlocks technology has been developed by a professor at U.C. Riverside who is looking for inspiration on its best uses. Try out the simulator. Suggestions and comments welcome!"

Comments

My first suggestion:

[roystgnr]

Remove the "Configurations with loops are not valid!" warning, and instead handle configurations with loops. It shouldn't be hard; if you're worried about someone setting up an "invalid" loop (like a NOR gate with its output hooked up to one of its inputs) then just make sure that the output of your blocks is lagged one timestep from the input.

Sounds to me like the Radio-Shack Electronics Kits

[OceanWave]

You could build all sorts of interesting projects out of those 200 in 1 kits they sold in the old days. They had water detectors, alarms where a circuit was opened, etc. Even low power AM band radio transmitters. The educational value was quite substantial. I started with a 150 in 1 kit, at the age of 7, and it provided me with most of what I knew about digital electrics, at that age.

Since then, I took on the real thing as I started in the development world.

(I posted a NULL by hitting return to early, on an earlier post. Sorry for the trouble.)

Though most will criticize Radio-Shack for lower quality, I did get some educational value out of it.

Too expensive

[jimmyswimmy]

Man, this is a great idea as a learning tool but totally impractical for production purposes. In the end of the paper, section 8, the author writes that this could be used for things like detecting speeds of vehicles on streets or detecting water leaks. There is NO way that such large-scale applications could be made inexpensively with separate individual components like these. I work in the semiconductor industry and margins on commodity components like these would become are razor thin. It's like that because nobody will spend extra money if they can get away with it. Any engineer worth his salt would rather design it right rather than get it done with these kiddie building blocks.

Re:Looks like PLC logic

[afidel]

Why is allowing someone who is not a high priest in the holy order of programmers to get a little electronics learning so stupid? Especially since these are made to teach the art to those who don't even qualify as acolytes in training to begin their studies. Every learning tool has its place. Just like I learned the basics of a transmission from building one of the bigger Technics sets I expect my son will learn the basics of electronics from something like this.

I think you're worried about the wrong hazard

[alizard]

Back in the 1960s, kids who were into science and technology were playing with chemistry sets and erector sets and electronics learning kits. That's when I grew up.

Today, the same kind of kids are learning how to deal with computers, learning to program, and their universe can be largely defined as "things that can be done on a computer", including learning simulations for things that can't be done on a computer. For them, the world IS the network and things that don't happen there are somehow unreal.

This has been happening for long enough that we've got grownups who can't see the value of a space program because it happens in the physical world, not cyberspace.

Cyberspace is important, but it, too, is based on physical artifacts. These artifacts are manufactured and their raw materials have to come from somewhere. How many people can look at a PC and figure out where it physically came from, down to the mines from where the steel in the cases came from?

IMHO, we need more educated people who understand how to deal in a technological way with physical things.

There is no way to build electronic things that work without dealing with physical objects and their mechanical properties.

Anything that encourages kids to get involved with electronics will provide the kind of education you appear to favor.

One other thing. Looked under the hood of a modern automobile? Physical, mechanical, electronic controls, and software. It's the perfect example of the combination of mechanical and electronic devices you're going to see in most "mechanical" devices these days. If you want kids to learn mechanical design, these kids have to learn electronics anyway.