Has anyone used Littlebits with the Arduino-for-Littlebits?
Has someone finally found a way to protect the Arduino from novice users?
What if.... I were, using just Littlebits modules, to hook up (by mistake... maybe I can't?) a push button which closes a circuit to ground to a pin on the Arduino, and then accidentally program that pin for output, and send it high?...
How does Littlebit protect against that easy beginner's mistake???
Etc.
(Let's get one thing out of the way... YES... it IS an expensive way to connect an LED with a resistor to your circuit. Can we PLEASE take THAT discussion as a given?)
Thanks for thoughts. When responding, it would be of interest if you indicate whether you have used Littlebits, and in what context?
Being sold off by Radio Shack as they close out for bankruptcy.
Ham operator coworker came in with some, all excited. Except he can't program!
Seems like somewhat more modular version of jeenodes, with little magnets to hold the pieces together. Really small surface mount parts.
I don't see them as being all that useful.
Just to save the next easily confused reader... it is Radio Shack which may be headed to bankrupcy, not Littlebits. Which IS what Cross said... but the sentence can be MIS-read.
I agree that the Littlebits concept may not be widely useful... pretty expensive way to connect an LED and a resistor to an Arduino... but it MAY (that's why I was asking) be a way for teachers to introduce microprocessor use to children. Hence my main concern: Does the design PREVENT accidental burn-outs through ill advised circuits? And are there any teachers out there who've tried the things? Or has anyone found a source of real information, vs the pretty "it is everything you want" advertising pages that seem to me to be all Littlebits themselves offer?
... which will take you to the schematic for the Arduino module for the Littlebits system. If I read it right, the lines to the Littlebits modules are "direct", i.e. not thorough any electronics which would limit what you could do with the line. My thanks to Littlebits for pointing me to that.
The Littlebits forum has also been brought to my attention. It is worth a look, just to see a style of forum I have not come across before... it uses "tags" instead of having dedicated "sub-boards" the way we do here...