
Crazy Circuits: An Open Source Electronics Learning System - skilled
https://www.instructables.com/id/Crazy-Circuits-an-Open-Source-Electronics-Learning/
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ChuckMcM
Nicely done. The whole Lego thing is pretty powerful. Even Lego thought so and
the whole "mindstorms" product line came from that.

However, the really cool stuff as far as I'm concerned is the nylon conductive
tape. That is super useful for things like making electrically active textiles
and putting circuits into odd places. One ohm per foot isn't too shabby. I
ordered a bunch of rolls of that (to make shipping reasonable) and I'm really
interested to play around with it.

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Tcepsa
You might also be interested in some of the work that bunnie has done with
paper, copper tape, binder clips, and various components in this blog post[1]
and also with Chibitronics[2]. That having been said, I'm glad they mention
why they didn't use copper tape here before I tried to stick any down on a
Lego plate!

[1][https://www.bunniestudios.com/blog/?p=5259](https://www.bunniestudios.com/blog/?p=5259)

[2][https://chibitronics.com/](https://chibitronics.com/)

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VectorLock
I'm always skeptical of these 'no solder circuits for kids' systems you see
everywhere but building them into the LEGO standard is a refreshingly good
idea.

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gambler
I'm not sure why Lego themselves didn't make Lego-based breadboards. Seems
like a fairly straightforward idea.

Flat breadboard with conductive "lanes". Bricks with electric parts. Flat
pieces with conductors. Conductivity in bricks would normally go from top to
bottom, so you could easily stack things or connect them from the top side,
without adding stuff to breadboard.

Would be great even for "adult" prototyping. No more wire spaghetti or bent
pins.

Bonus points for "empty" bricks you could solder your own parts into. You do
it once and get a reusable part.

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tlrobinson
Actually...
[https://www.bricklink.com/v2/catalog/catalogitem.page?P=4758...](https://www.bricklink.com/v2/catalog/catalogitem.page?P=4758#T=C&C=1)

Before Mindstorms there was a 9V system. It was really basic though:
batteries, lights, motors, sirens, and wires.

~~~
fenwick67
The Mindstorms RCX used that same contact system and had light, rotation, and
touch sensors as well.

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felipemnoa
If you really want to learn digital electronics you should learn how to design
a very simple CPU from scratch. If you can do that then you can build
virtually any digital circuit you can think of. And it is not that hard
(although it will take some dedication, months of reading and experimenting)
Plenty of resources out there that teach you how to do it from scratch.

When I was a kid I tried to learn electronics by buying these types of kits.
They were totally useless, complete waste of money and they only accomplished
in making me feel that electronics was way too hard for me. All I could do was
assemble the circuits in the diagrams but there was no understanding involved.

The worst part was that they all used some computers chips, like the 555
timer, to do some special effects, etc. When you are starting out any chip is
kind of useless in your goal to understanding digital electronics.

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zakki
Do you have any link on how to design a simple cpu from scratch? Or a search
keyword for it!

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copperx
Nand2tetris will teach you.

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felipemnoa
Yes, this is what I was thinking about.

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cmroanirgo
Fantastic! Who would walk past a project like "squishy sounds", "conductive
paint piano" or "ugly holiday sweater" [1] (It's linked to in the article)

1\.
[https://browndoggadgets.dozuki.com/c/Project_Guides](https://browndoggadgets.dozuki.com/c/Project_Guides)

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mosselman
This is very cool and looks like a lot of fun. The price not so much however.
Where does a $200 price tag come from for a pack of parts that should go for
around $10-20? Are the PCBs so expensive to create?

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BeefySwain
I'm sure the price comes from a lack of scale.

The creators of this should consider something like massdrop.com to see if
they can generate sufficient interest to get the prices within a reasonable
range. The "Crazy Circuits Makerspace Set"[0] is just about an order of
magnitude more costly than I would consider "cheap" for such a kit.

That said, as someone who had a lot of fun with Snapcircuits as a child, I
agree that this would have been a great way to transition from something that
is essentially a "toy" to full blown bread-board tinkering.

[0] [https://www.browndoggadgets.com/collections/new-classroom-
se...](https://www.browndoggadgets.com/collections/new-classroom-
sets/products/crazy-circuits-makerspace-set)

~~~
geoelectric
Keep in mind the Makerspace kit is ostensibly aimed at arming a whole
classroom or workshop full of people, though it looks a little light to me in
major components for that. However, it's not meant to be a personal starter
kit.

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BrownDogGadgets
Exactly. Schools and libraries like when they can buy one big kit or set,
especially with grants. It's not designed for a home user.

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cushychicken
Do any of these circuit board chips work with the Lego brick separator?

[https://goo.gl/images/PpEujN](https://goo.gl/images/PpEujN)

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pkaye
These things always turn out to be every expensive. A breadboard it not much
more difficult.

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archgoon
Breadboards hide the connections and require a significant amount of thinking
in transforming to and from a circuit diagram. This isn't hard once you've
mastered it, but I can understand wanting to ease K-12 classrooms into it.

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camtarn
Yeah. Connections on heavily-used breadboards can also become very iffy, which
is somewhat demoralising: you assemble a circuit on the breadboard and it just
flat out doesn't work, or perhaps it works for a bit then dies.

While it seems to be a bit of a dead technology now, something like wirewrap
would be a much better way to translate directly from diagram to board.

