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Adafruit To Teach Electronics Through Puppets In New Kids Show
coop0030 writes "Wired has an article up about how Adafruit, the kit-based electronics retailer and promoter of hobbyist engineering, is aiming to teach electronics to a younger demographic. So young that they're enlisting the help of puppets. Their new online show, titled Circuit Playground, will teach the essentials of electronics and circuitry to children through kid-friendly dolls with names like Cappy the Capacitor and Hans the 555 Timer Chip. Limor 'Ladyada' Fried, Adafruit's founder and chief engineer (and 2012 Entrepreneur of the Year), will host the episodes, with her team assisting with onscreen and puppeteering duties. Episodes will premiere this March, and Fried holds hope for them to help inspire the next generation of designers and builders."
Onto a more serious note; it's always great to see somebody bring in some new ideas to bring electronics to kids.
It will be very interesting to see how the concepts are brought across using puppets. I would have liked to see some examples before the story went live.
The big issue that I always find is that when somebody comes up with a new idea for teaching concepts, they can illustrate basic concepts very effectively but get bogged down when the material becomes deeper and not so readily obvious.
Having said that, if they have a character for a 555, maybe they have a good formula!
myke
Mimetics Inc. Twitter
We're gonna need another Timmy!
All misspellings and grammatical errors in the above post are intentional and part of my artistic expression.
But not necessarily in that order.
In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is usually crucified.
I'm not 100% sure what a 555 timing chip is so I might have to watch the show myself to learn, lol.
That would be the "74LVC245 - Breadboard Friendly 8-bit Logic Level Shifter" https://www.adafruit.com/products/735 otherwise known as "Shifty"!
You don't even want to know what she has planned for Power Supplies (AC/DC, AC/AC, and DC/DC)!
"I say we take off, nuke the site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure."
it is possible to even make a sponge (bob) exciting and fun for kids :)
Don't you remember the Steve Jobs puppet they had that kept re-inventing things that were already invented?
Sesame Street has been educating kids about tech for many years now.
Oh get a grip. Stick to picofarads and low voltage and low amperage and there's no danger.
You can get into trouble with batteries and wire if you try hard enough.
Many of us were building circuits when we were single digit in age.
I applaud Ladyada. I think what she's doing already (with adafruit) is fantastic. This just adds to my admiration.
I'm sure Hans will be just as exciting as any Old Timer is expected to be.
Actually, if all you think the 555 can do is oscillate, then you're in for a pleasant surprise.
There are a lot of really amazing things you can do with it - just doing a quick search, take a look HERE.
myke
Mimetics Inc. Twitter
Kids are odd creatures. They often have short attention spans, but they can watch the same thing (literally) thousands of times. If the kid learns something from it that is pretty awesome.