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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!"
Happy Trails!
Erick
http://www.busyweather.com/
When I was growing up around 1968 - 1969 Raython had a series of kits that you could build circuits with out wires by touching blocks together and the ground was a metal plate. Connections were metal contact with magnets behind that.
The Learning Company has had this since the early 1980 in a game called Robot Odyssey. You could wire stuff up and solve puzzles. I rember since I was on the conversion crew from the Apple II/IBM PC to Color computer.
Its a nice idea but has been done for a long long time.
Looks like a decent replacement for lego for my kids now they are a bit old (7) for technic.
Of course when they get old enough to be left unsupervised with a soldering iron in a year or two I'll be introducing them to the joys of roll your own serial and ISA devices, but up until now there doesn't seem to have been a decent stop gap.
Beep beep.
This reminds me very much of programming a cheap (quasi-)PLC (programmable logic controller) we use at work often: a Siemens LOGO (pdf link). Basically, it's a device that has a bunch of inputs (8 digital, or 6 digital / 2 analog), and some outputs (4 digital), and contains a bunch of logic gates, comparators, and timers. You can make fairly sophisticated control systems using these.
We use them, for example, to control chemical injection systems. They have overrides based on filters backwashing, timers to dose to keep the pumps if they haven't run for a while, timers to prevent them running too long, etc. It's pretty endless what you can do, and these are only the lowest level of entry into the world of automation and PLCs.
Take the eBlock logic and timer modules, make them all software, and you have a LOGO. You still need the sensors and controls/outputs, but you can make some fairly complex programs involving hundreds of blocks, without the size of using hundreds of blocks.
The eblocks are a neat idea for educational purposes, but I'd see people quickly moving up to small PLCs (like the LOGO). They also definately don't have any use in industrial applications, though I don't know if that was the intent or not.
Speak before you think
Here's another solution, Phidgets:
http://www.phidgets.com/
They offer sensors, controllers, and more.
Years later, when I actually played with live components, could build my own cases, and could jack everything into a serial port did I truely fall in love with building things. (Forrest E. Mims, there is a spot in heaven for you.)
Hey, I'm the same guy who maxed out the capabilities on the lego mindstorms in 2 days. Come on are more than 3 inputs and outputs REALLY too much to ask for... The MIT handboard has 12 inputs, 4 outputs, and if you slave over a few pins from the LCD you can us it to generate a 16 bit parallel interface...
"Learning is not compulsory... neither is survival."
--Dr.W.Edwards Deming
The UC Riverside engineering college has an ABHORENT graduation rate, when I was there it was 30%. The program was very tough, but there were also alot of professors who cared so little about their courses they taught *nothing*. I had one chem professor lecture on the heart medicine he was working on and iron refining techniques all semester, then he gave us a standardized test and the whole class failed. We'd never seen a problem worked on the board the entire course. Most of the lower division courses were like that, professors didn't give a crap. My graduation was delayed by a mechanical engineering teacher who flunked 80% of his class.
Contrast this with a professor like Vahid-- the entire class flunked his first midterm and he stopped the course and said "This is awful guys, I have never seen anything like this, ever. Obviously I'm doing something wrong because all of you shouldn't be failing like this. So I want everyone to take 5 minutes, write down what you feel is wrong with the course, turn it in, and then go home and take the day off and we'll come back tomorrow and go over the notes and see what we can come up with." And he was as good a friend and father to tiny tim as he promised.
Religion is a gateway psychosis. -- Dave Foley
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.