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Toys Hardware

Small Electronic Logic Blocks - eBlocks 169

Posted by michael from the build-your-own-anything dept.
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!"
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Small Electronic Logic Blocks - eBlocks More

Small Electronic Logic Blocks - eBlocks

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  • I want some eBlocks now!!!! (Score:5, Interesting)

    by erick99 ( 743982 ) * <homerun@gmail.com> on Friday April 16, 2004 @10:16PM (#8888711)
    I love the idea of the eBlocks - not only for the applications shown within the website, but also as a teaching tool. I learned basic electronics as I worked my way up the ladder of Amateur Radio licenses. I would love to use something like the eBlocks to teach my two young sons electronics. I have bought just about every "learning/educational" electronics kit on the market but none of them are quite like the eBlocks. I sent off an email to the folks doing this work to see how they plan to develop this further - sell/market/distribute, etc. I think this is a great project and I hope it is successful. The web site does a great job explaining the concepts and there are some excellent pictures embedded here and there. The simulator is pretty good as well.

    Happy Trails!

    Erick

    • Neat. Reminds me of some lego-like logic blocks I've used in college in Switzerland. I wasn't even born when those were developped, but I had quite some (geek) fun with them later! :)
      Cf. http://www.smaky.ch/en/lami/part3.php [smaky.ch]
      No motion detectors and not many other cool sensors/actuators, but the whole set of logic functions from basic gates up to microcontrollers (added later) were provided.
      These Logidules were too pricey for the general public, only a few schools/universities used them. Glad to see someon

  • But doesn't this seem a tad bit like Lego's Mindstorms products?
    • I dont see how. Mindstorms are a microcontroller (big yellow&gray block) that attaches to sensors, motors, etc.. eblocks are not grounded in computers; they are pure electronics. Saying that Mindstorms and eblocks are the same is like saying a model steam engine is the same thing as a locomotive. or something. analogies escape me like, uh, oxygen or something.

    • But doesn't this seem a tad bit like Lego's Mindstorms products?

      Translation: I didnt RTFA

      Thank you. Thank you very much

    • With the leJOS Java package (including java.net) an RCX brick, and some sensors (Logit sensors connect to the RCX) you could match the functionality of eBlocks. However, I suppose the implementation of eBlocks is simpler for non-programers/non-techies. www.lejos.org
  • but the light sensor has a lifetime of 1 year... and a few of the other blocks are only good for 2-3 years.

    not sure if that's good for the average person with no programming abilities (the type of people who won't read about stuff)

    • Re:looks like fun (Score:3, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      You mean battery life, right? I asked Dr. Vahid about it last quarter and he said they were working on other means of powering them, including a way to let blocks share power.

  • Had this and did this. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by SWTP_OS9 ( 658064 ) on Friday April 16, 2004 @10:27PM (#8888753)
    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.

    • Re:Had this and did this. (Score:4, Informative)

      by ScrewMaster ( 602015 ) on Friday April 16, 2004 @10:35PM (#8888798)
      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.

      I had one of those too ... it was called "Lectron". Still have it in a box somewhere around here.
      • I had one of those, too, though it was just a partial kit that I think came from a garage sale or something. I fooled with it on and off for a couple of years, but never seemed to have the blocks I needed to make something go right or do something truly interesting.

        I kind of wish I still had it now that I'm in my 30's with a little more knowledge of how electronics work and a definite nostalgia for anachronistic tech gear. If you've still got one, I suggest holding onto it. :^)
    • I think the "new" part is making the system operate wireless. I'm not altogether sure what that means in terms of usefulness although pre-certified radio equipment may be of use to system designers so they don't have to go through as rigorous of a testing process to assure FCC compliance.

      One issue may be that the affordable wireless bandwidths are pretty saturated.

  • Nice stuff (Score:5, Funny)

    by Realistic_Dragon ( 655151 ) on Friday April 16, 2004 @10:29PM (#8888764) Homepage
    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.

    • Re:Nice stuff (Score:1, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Boasting about how smart your kids are (or how smart you would like them to be) with a porn site in your subject field is just plain scarey.

      • I don't think he's bragging about how smart his kids are -- my father taught me how to use a soldering iron at about the age he's talking about. Same goes for my brother.

        I may be a little bias, of course -- being a teacher has taught *me* that children (when raised properly) are capable of more (both intellectually and in maturity) than most adults I know.

    • You bring up an interesting point with the eblocks instead of technic. I have wondered lately if our society has made too drastic a turn to teaching people electronics. I mean, its all well and good that society becomes more competent with them so don't get me wrong.

      Its just......sometimes I feel as if we often replace mechanical knowledge with electronic.

      There will always be mechanically inclined people in this world, and I understand there are people who are both mechanicaly and electronically inclined,

      • I think you're worried about the wrong hazard (Score:4, Insightful)

        by alizard ( 107678 ) <alizard@ecis . c om> on Saturday April 17, 2004 @01:04AM (#8889538) Homepage
        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.

    • Looks like a decent replacement for lego for my kids now they are a bit old (7) for technic.

      What?! They have at least five more years before they will give up Lego Technic, if they have the interest for mechanics (and computerization with Mindstorms). Remember, there are lots of grownups building with Technic!

      Just make sure they don't think that you can be too old to build with Lego...

      Cheers
      Lars

  • My first suggestion: (Score:4, Insightful)

    by roystgnr ( 4015 ) <roy@NospAM.stogners.org> on Friday April 16, 2004 @10:29PM (#8888771) Homepage
    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.
    • A NOR block with its output hooked back to its input time-delayed is an oscillator, which is only marginally better than a NOR block looped with no time delay (which is undefined).

      Why exactly would you want a logic loop?
  • Seems like this would be a good way for developing nations to use more modern technology without having to have a lot of training, i.e. for this device use this arrangement, arrange this way for this device. That and easy to do repairs.. simply have extra blocks on hand to replace those that are bad/damaged.
  • Nice for those nights you really don't want to futz with wire-wrap or breadboards.

  • Might have some educational uses but I can't imagine someone actually using this to build something they wanted to use. I would imagine that to make anything even semi complex would require a lot of boxes and a mess of wires.

    You know what would be neat, a PC app that could communicate wirelessly with each box and then each box could also potentially talk to any other box wirelessly. So you could build the eBlock system on the PC (kinda like their simulator) then the computer tells the boxes which other bo

  • Looks like PLC logic (Score:5, Interesting)

    by gregmac ( 629064 ) on Friday April 16, 2004 @10:45PM (#8888861) Homepage
    This reminds me very much of programming a cheap (quasi-)PLC (programmable logic controller) we use at work often: a Siemens LOGO [siemens.de] (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.
    • Whenever someone tells me that a kid's toy has no practical application in industry, I can't help put think of all the crazy things I've seen in steel mills and the museum I work at. Off the shelf stuff that is dissected and re-assembled in un-natural ways to get a job done, cheap.

      I remember seeing more than one control console that was driven by a breadboard and a few discretes from radio shack.

    • This looks a lot like IEC function block diagrams. These can be very useful in PLC programming - the Modicon Quantum processor can use any of the 5 standard IEC languages, including function block, with the Concept programming package.

      Concept is a bit long in the tooth, but their new Unity package is coming, which should be a killer control app. Check out the modicon website [modicon.com] for more information.
    • Oh yeah, these are great. They cost about 300 bucks and have less functionality than a $2 AVR or PIC. The only difference is that instead of programming them in C or Assembler, you have a fancy graphical, overly simplistic "programming language". I know, they have a market - engineers (?) who couldn't program a "Hello, World" app if their life depended on it. But honestly, what's the point? If you're not seriously retarded, you're better off getting a breadboard and a few PICs or AVRs and going through a f

      • Re:Looks like PLC logic (Score:4, Insightful)

        by afidel ( 530433 ) on Saturday April 17, 2004 @12:23AM (#8889330)
        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.
      • They cost about 300 bucks and have less functionality than a $2 AVR or PIC. The only difference is that instead of programming them in C or Assembler, you have a fancy graphical, overly simplistic "programming language".

        Obviously you've never worked in the real world. While yes, you could do a lot of this with a PIC, it also means you have a lot more work to do .. design and build a circuit board, put it in an enclosure, get it approved by hydro for installation.

        You also have to write a program in a low-
        • Sorry for spoiling your pleasure to poo-poo your parent post. The fact is that he/she has an excellent point. A solution using an AVR or PIC MCU would not only be cheaper. It would be much more reliable, as it would use less active components.

          You also have to write a program in a low-level language, which means you introduce the possibility of a lot more bugs, and it will take longer to program.

          Wrong. You obviously never worked in the real world, otherwise you'd know that there you typically program the
          • A solution using an AVR or PIC MCU would not only be cheaper. It would be much more reliable, as it would use less active components.

            Obviously you skipped a good majority of my post, where I talked about how it is not cheaper, since you have to develop all this stuff on your own. Time = Money. Employees get paid, and any time people spend doing stuff in house is time that is not billable. On big production runs, where you're making hundreds or thousands of the same device, then yes, using PICs or AVRs wou
    • Why would one pay for the Siemens LOGO, when you can get much more functionality and speed from a cheap EPLD or FPGA? Heck, even a simple PAL or GAL should be more powerful, at a fraction of the price.

      Yes, I read the linked brochure.
  • Sounds a lot like Lego, but slightly more electronic. If that's the case, this should be pretty cool..

  • Also check out Phidgets (Score:5, Informative)

    by Chairboy ( 88841 ) on Friday April 16, 2004 @10:47PM (#8888870) Homepage
    Here's another solution, Phidgets:

    http://www.phidgets.com/

    They offer sensors, controllers, and more.
  • I tool started off with one of those "discrete components on springs" sets. Once I got past the 3 or 4 cool things in the book, it gathered dust. My interest in electronics was gone.

    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...

  • . . .maybe someone can remove my e-stumbling blocks and I can get that EE I've always wanted.

  • Oh great.... (Score:3, Funny)

    by Mean_Nishka ( 543399 ) on Friday April 16, 2004 @11:03PM (#8888954) Homepage Journal
    Didn't we learn anything from the Asgard? Just wait until these things start multiplying!

  • My favorite Frank Vahid Story (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Monkelectric ( 546685 ) <slashdot@mon k e l e c tric.com> on Friday April 16, 2004 @11:06PM (#8888971)
    I graduated from UC Rivereside not long ago (yay unemployment!), and Frank Vahid was and I assume still is one of the outstanding professors and a generally nice guy.

    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.

    • I must have contributed to that graduation rate, because I left nigh on a decade ago (Comp Sci); hard to justify paying such high salaries to such an inconsistent lot of educators (some excellent, majority were vile). Please tell me Gerardo Beni has left, there's a guy that defines nepotism like no other. I'm betting you also missed a few of the true charmers, back before it was accredited for Comp Sci. FWIW, in my class, there were a couple guys who dropped out and became millionaires. Others merely be
      • I don't think they still have a minority study room. But I agree the campuses try wayyyy too hard to be ethnically diverse. If I ever have the money I'd like to sue UC Riverside for forcing me to take their "Ethnic Studies" course. It was 10 weeks of white bashing. Did they make you take that course?

        I think UCR is really pretty miserable when even the alumni don't have anything good to say about it :) A friend of mine is doing his PHD there, he is researching a brilliant networking idea. Even though

    • Hear Hear.

      Vahid was the best prof I ever had at UCR. He was genuinely interested in the students doing well, but not at the expense of academics. If students failed the first midterm, he was one of the few who didn't:

      a)just keep going and flunk 80% of the class or
      b)make the rest of the class a cakewalk so everyone passed.

      He changed the class around so that you actually learned the material and liked doing it.He was the first professor that I had who actually got me interested in the subject matter beyond

  • Sounds to me like the Radio-Shack Electronics Kits (Score:4, Insightful)

    by OceanWave ( 192467 ) on Friday April 16, 2004 @11:07PM (#8888979)
    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.
    • The problem with those 150-in-1 and 200-in-1 are that you can't create anything permanent with it. Everything you do with them is stuck in that big box. And the wiring would get so complex and abstract for the most advance circuits, that I would end up following the plan without really understanding what I was doing.
    • I started with the 150 in 1 kit -- the one in the wooden box little springs... ah the fond memories..
      however, it was the 300 in 1 kit that really got me excited about electronics. this kit came with a whole bunch of simple components and had a prototyping board in the middle... this eliminated a lot of the mess that the spring-based kits caused, and allowed you to plugin your own components. i still find ways to use it when designing new circuits - i think that it still has the original batteries!

      the e
      • That brings back memories - I received a Mykit System 80(?) which had all the components (resistors, capacitors, solar cell, microphone, morse code switch) mounted on two plastic frames. Yellow wires were used for long connections, red wires for medium length connections and blue for the short connections. Simple circuits were fun and easy to make, but complex circuits required something like 40+ wires of all lengths, and you would always end up pulling out one wire as you tried to make a new connection.

  • logiblocs (Score:2, Interesting)

    by hyperman.biz ( 735840 )
    Don't you hate it when you are working on a business plan for a similar concept and you see someone getting out a similar product before you !

    However, I have a problem seing how their concept is more advance than logiblocs [logiblocs.com].

    The concept I'm working on will be based on open source hardware. any input on this ?

  • I was just reading about a possible business idea using do it yourself home security kits on Business 2.0... Perhaps this could be used for such a system if someone wsa willing to start it up?

    http://www.business2.com/b2/getrich/snapshot/0,1 98 35,7,00.html

    Addbo

  • Too expensive (Score:3, Insightful)

    by jimmyswimmy ( 749153 ) on Friday April 16, 2004 @11:10PM (#8889001)
    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.
    • But what about using it for prototyping ? Fischertechnik [fischertechnik.de] from germany is also selling its block for industrial prototyping.

    • Engineers Need Not Apply (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Vagary ( 21383 )

      Any engineer worth his salt would rather design it right rather than get it done with these kiddie building blocks.

      Ah, but what if you didn't need an engineer? What if municipalities or factories or whatever could get their janitors and repairers and other semi-skilled labourers to make these? Engineers should only be used for creating something that is unlike every else ever made*, the kinds of devices these might replace should currently be made by technologists, eBlock-type technology will simply bri

      • Ah, but what if you didn't need an engineer?

        On one hand I agree with you. On the gripping hand, it's like saying that VBA is so powerful and easy to use you don't need to be a programmer for a lot of tasks. True on the surface, but for anything other than simple applications, the untrained user runs into trouble fast.

        In my first job as a design engineer I also did customer support. I've seen how all the small issues an engineer unconsciously takes into account can cause real trouble for an inexperienced

  • For the less-eblock-inclined, to create logic gates: Connect two buttons to a two way logic gate, and set it... For an AND Gate: 0001 For a OR Gate: 0111 For a NOR Gate: 1000 Now, all we need are NOT gates (1 input, 1 output, inverts input)... then you can build massive neat things.

  • Looks like it might be pretty expensive... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Dr_Marvin_Monroe ( 550052 ) on Friday April 16, 2004 @11:21PM (#8889044)
    OK, I don't want to rain on his parade, it's a cool idea, and really good for people who don't want to work with proto-board or wire-wrap. I just see one BIG problem.....cost.

    Having been into PIC's for a while now, I'm finding that cost is the final frontier when using/building small electronics. I can't imagine any of these building blocks being sold for less than $10-$15 each, and that's for the simple functions. By the time you get something really interesting going, it's gonna cost a LOT of money for all of the modules you'll need. MUCH more than it would to buy a PIC Demo board with programmer, LCD, and all the other features they throw into the box. From the links, it looks like he might have one of these processors in his boxen.

    Here's a simple cost breakdown for one of the modules shown in the photo that I saw on the site:

    1) Electronics: no less than $2 for any of the functions listed. PIC's are run from $2-18 in small qty, depending on features.

    2) Wire: Sounds trivial, but it's gonna be $0.50 to attach two wires to a circuit board... That's a minimum for boxes that only have 2 wires, scale accordingly.

    3) Packaging: small molded plastic box in qty $0.50. I know, I've been pricing them for my products.

    4) Custom circuit board: minimum of $1.40 for small 1.5" X 2.5" 2-layer board.

    5) Assembly: gonna cost $3 to stuff 20 small parts on that panelized board. No way around that, unless you've got a lot of spare time and are good with the iron.

    6) Potting: gotta hold that stuff in the small enclosure. It's gonna be $0.50 here too.

    7) Packaging/testing: it's gonna cost something to test and put that baby in a box. My estimate is at least $1 for each unit.

    Really cool, but it looks really expensive.

    For a cost comparison, you can purchase the PICDEM2+ board, with In-circuit debugger and development environment for $229.00 (digikey #DV164006-ND). You can also download the demo C compiler for free and start hacking immediatly.

    With the features on that board, you can do 10-15 modules worth right off the bat....

    AVR is a similar option, as is the 8051 and Z80. There's lots of small demo boards available.

    If you like PLC type logic, try one of the cheaper units from Keyence or DirectLogic...these units are about $150 with all the features shown and more.... Both have high-speed counters, large memory and at least 8-in and 8-out....

    Bottom line is this, don't be afraid of tinkering with parts...it's fun, cheap, and you'll learn a lot more by actually reading the datasheets and soldering wires yourself.

    Happy tinkering

    • Solution: China. Cheap labor.

      As far as parts go, Digi-Key is like the 7-11 of the electronics world: very convenient but at a high price. No one that does production work pays half what they charge for single item quantities.
    • You're right, cost seems to be the problem with these things.

      It seems a lot like the Basic Stamp products. Easy to program because it's got a BASIC interpreter built into each module. But then you have to spend the $30-50 for each module. When the actual bare PIC controller involved is a $3-8 part.
    • true, but the idea of discreet little logic components that serve a specific purpose is nice. Research prototypes tend to be large, but couple this with research in say, a modified ink-jet printer [eetimes.com] and its starts to show some real potential.

      People could then design individual little components, or put together already designed components to create larger devices (and glue/staple on any more advanced components that aren't able to be printed).

      I believe this is how opensource will spread into hardware.

  • This reminds me of Capsela (Score:3, Interesting)

    by JoeShmoe ( 90109 ) <askjoeshmoe@hotmail.com> on Friday April 16, 2004 @11:21PM (#8889045)
    Remember those? Only instead of working with electrical energy, it was all about working with mechanical energy. Some of the capsules were differentials, some where gear reducers, and some interacted with the outside world, with lights or vacuums or propellors.

    Other than the fact that they were bulky as hell, it was one of my favorite toys. Ah fond bathtub memories of running the vacuum in reverse and making a squirt powered pontoon boat.

    - JoeShmoe
    .
    • dude, I had capsula too! Actually I still have a bag of capsula parts in my closet. I liked the paddle wheel boat. The one flaw was the stupid piece that connects two modules... I would pulle them apart with my teeth, and end up cracking them. That made future connections really loose. :(

      ahhh memories...

  • My recommendations (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Viadd ( 173388 ) on Friday April 16, 2004 @11:26PM (#8889070)
    I would have one battery block you could plug in anywhere in the setup, rather than have each block have its own battery. If you have 37 blocks hooked together, how do you know which one has the bad battery? On the downside it makes the connectors and wires bulkier by one power line, and requires n+1 blocks while before you had one. but it beats having to buy 37 batteries every year and take everything apart to replace them. Cheaper too because you can use smaller lighter, unopenable boxes.

    (Assuming that you have a PIC or other smarts per block): You should have some way of plugging in a computer interface block and have the entire circuit topology displayed on your computer: each block can query all its neighbors to ask what they are and what state they are in, and what their neighbors are, etc.

    Have user-programable blocks. Maybe a full PIC development C compiler etc. is required, or you can write your own little-language (or better yet, one that already exists) to lower the bar for beginning programmers. That way, when someone wants a block that shows red when the cat flap has had an exit more recently than an entrance, it can be programmed up, rather than requiring the development of a new cat-flap module.

    [karmawhore]Everything should be open source, with a Linux development system, of course.[/karmawhore]

    Servo motor blocks, motor blocks, etc. Maybe make a Mindstorms interface.
    • The problem with that is Voltage dropoff over distance from the battery block and different amperage needs for each module forcing you to calculate these things. Self powered blocks eliminate those problems in exchange for some slightly more difficult troubleshooting (read as: better test your blocks before starting on a new project)
      • If the full battery voltage, e.g. 9V, is applied to the bus, and each block has its own regulator (e.g. I found the 7805T for 16 cents at findchips.com, there's probably better cheaper) then voltage dropoff is not a significant problem, especially at the miniscule currents modern microcontrollers draw. Motors, of course, take more power, but still...
    • http://www.avrfreaks.org

      GNU Open-Source C Compiler Toolchain
      $60 US starter kit with prototype board (STK500)
      Linux Compatible
      Thousands of open-source projects

      What else do you need?

  • Missing blocks? (Score:4, Funny)

    by cliffiecee ( 136220 ) on Friday April 16, 2004 @11:26PM (#8889071) Homepage Journal
    Here are just a few glaring omissions [geocities.com] from their catalog...
  • Remember all those robots you made as a kid with those gears and block? I think this would be really cool if somehow this technology could be applied there.

  • like Labview in hardware... (Score:3, Informative)

    by caveat ( 26803 ) on Friday April 16, 2004 @11:32PM (#8889102)
    anybody who's used the labview [ni.com] scientific test, measurement&recording and control software package can see how this will work just like LV in hardware; all you'll have to do will be pick your modules, wire them together and voila, a totally custom hardware solution. cool.

  • Sounds like X10 (Score:2, Informative)

    by brendan_orr ( 648182 )
    I've seen water detecting devices, motion detectors, power controls, etc. that communicate wirelessly over the X10 protocol. SmartHome [smarthome.com] sells some such devices.
  • 1. Buy eblocks.
    2. Combine with lego.
    3. ???
    4. Profit!!! no wait, not profit,... Robot!!!!
  • Heathkits! That was the way to learn electronics. You started with a 2 or 3 transistor springclips-on-Masonite breadboard and worked your way up to some pretty good test equipment or maybe a TV, stereo, or ham gear. The manuals were excellent and nobody since has ever even come close to their quality. Every Heathkit I ever built is still going strong. Wish they would come back.
    • I just wonder, do you also tell people to program software the old fashioned way by using first generation language ? I think the goal with these modular hardware concepts is to get rid of the discrete component (resistance, transistor, IC, etc.) by encapsulating them in a black box with a simple interface. I compare it to creating a programming language of higher generation for hardware.
      • When they are starting out - yes. Black box programming or hardware construction is fine until it comes time to figure out why your black box isn't behaving as you expect it to. That's when you have to know what is going on inside that black box. Or hire someone else who knows and charges accordingly. Better to learn the guts early on and be the expensive knowledgeable guy than the one calling for help.
        • What about making the black box design open source ? So everybody know what's inside the box and can improve its design over time. Only the interface needs to be the same.
          • Exposing the innards of any form of black box be it hardware or software is a great help to anyone using it provided they have the background knowledge to understand what they are looking at. That's my point - teach or learn the basics first. It's like starting out as a Windows admin and moving up to Unix et al. When you start using the command line you quickly discover your ignorance of the finer points of the operating system and hardware that the GUI has kept hidden from you. It's knowledge of those fine
            • You don't need to learn Assembly Language to learn how to write good software in Java. Moving bits in a memory register doesn't help you understand the concept of object-oriented programming. The eBlocks, Logiblocs and all these other systems are comparable to a higher level programming languages.
  • http://www.tkgate.org/screenshots.html
  • As mentioned in the Had This post, in the late sixties there was a very well designed and elegant educational toy called Lectron. It deserves a little more complete description than has been gicen because it was so coool!

    One inch by one inch plastic cubes had magnets to hold them to a metal backplane. On top was the symbol for the component they contained. Transistors, Photocells, variable resistors, etc. Connections out were to the sides of the cubes. Each conetion had a magnet, and through very well

  • Man I am glad he is such a smart dude (Score:3, Interesting)

    by codepunk ( 167897 ) on Saturday April 17, 2004 @12:11AM (#8889257)
    Go to basicx.com [basicx.com] and get a simple to use and program basic stamp compatible chip. Better yet it is way faster than any basic stamp and holds more instructions. 50 dollar chip and some cheap leds and switches and
    much more flexibility. His idea is ok but it is to costly compared to some of the other solutions. This is nothing more that the ibutton idea except ibutton only requires a single wire.
  • I can see this opening up a new segment in the pr0n industry. What size/shape are these things, and can we get one to vibrate?

  • The value seems to come mostly from the simplicity of the components, rather than their physical nature, so why not make them virtual and run them on a single processor (microcontroller)? You'd have the various I/O modules (without any processing), but no logic modules, rather a central processor module.

    The processor module supplies power to the I/O modules and is programmed from a PC. The PC presents a virtual layout space where various simplified I/O modules can be chosen based on the actual ones present
  • It seems like a simpler (yet more complex) 'The Incredible Machine'! Man, I loved that game...
    He should definately open source this puppy - i can think of at least five good improvements off the top of my head. Anybody made an ALU yet?
  • If you get a kick out of this stuff, like myself, you should check out Logic Works & Design Works.

    I've only used Logic Works, and it has every possible component imaginable. From D flip flops to light bulbs to quartz crystals. You can even enter a chip number (such as the 555 timer chip). It is an incredible program - i would love to try design works. (Fortunately, they have a 30 day free trial! Methinks i've found what i'm doing with my friday night...)

    Logic Works is the student version, an

  • I don't think it is that good. (Score:3, Interesting)

    by tftp ( 111690 ) on Saturday April 17, 2004 @01:57AM (#8889747) Homepage
    These blocks are too unreliable to make anything worthwhile, and the design will not last. The built-in batteries are unacceptable, and as other people already commented, the probability of failure grows fast with the number of components. Sooner or later the batteries will be failing, and while they are busy at that you will be busy frantically debugging the design. Let me tell you, power problems are highly unpleasant to debug even if you have a decent scope because failures at some marginal, barely working, Vcc will be intermittent and undetectable.

    If you want to learn electronics (aside from a university), get a book or two, and read them. Then get some similation software and learn how circuits behave. Then get some premade eval boards of whatever you want (MCU, CPLD, FPGA etc.) and play with them. If you are still interested, then you probably want to work as an engineer, since only then you will have access to all the expensive (and neat) toys and gizmos.

    But if you don't plan to become an engineer, but only want to make some IR-operated control for your house, don't try to use those "blocks", or bredboards, or wire wrap - that is nothing but waste of time. Begin with a design on paper. Then simulate it if you can (you can if you have a computer.) Then either etch the PCB, or order one (tools are free, job about $100) and assemble your new toy yourself.

    If you can get away with using standard eval boards for your purpose, definitely do so. Fact is, more and more "hardware" is now implemented with DSP technologies and highly integrated, specialized ICs. You don't want, in fact, study how to make a decent RF amplifier - you buy one from Minicircuits for less than a dollar. You don't want to make a radio with 20 transistors - instead you use one or two chips (Analog Devices). Instead of going to the basics you can embrace the modern technology, it is much easier to work with, and many tools for the beginners can be had for free (see Xilinx, for example), and the visibility into your circuit is much, much better [unless you have a million dollar lab.]

    • These blocks are too unreliable to make anything worthwhile, and the design will not last. The built-in batteries are unacceptable, and as other people already commented, the probability of failure grows fast with the number of components. Sooner or later the batteries will be failing, and while they are busy at that you will be busy frantically debugging the design. Let me tell you, power problems are highly unpleasant to debug even if you have a decent scope because failures at some marginal, barely worki
  • I had a similar idea for a product a few months ago. I mentioned it to my business managers and IP lawyers. It seemed cool, but we are concentrating on software for now, so the idea must wait until very late this year at the earliest.

    Then I read the summary of this article and freaked because it seemed someone else was already implementing my idea. Ouch. Wait a week and I'll have another one.

    Then I read the linked articles. While they have really explored what COULD be done, they have no clue what SH

  • The Smart-Its Project has been doing something similar since around 2000.

    http://www.smart-its.org/ [smart-its.org]
  • The real problem that is addressed with these blocks is that of rapid electronic prototyping. That is pretty hard to do. Ideally I would want to be able to put a number of analog/digital blocks together and have a working set within an afternoon.

    This is very hard to do. Even though microcontrollers are easy to set up, they need a custom circuit. The second problem is that even if things are connected wireless, they need power to work. The third problem is heat. Building blocks should be placed in a way tha
  • I know it's late in the discussion but I'll add an idea that we kicked around a while back.

    Basically, on the back of a pc you have a shelf, with five or so docking sockets on it. These sockets should be rounded, friendly, damage proof, and easy to attach something to. Think sitting your kettle on it's little power dock.

    There is a standardised form for the things which attach to these sockets. Say, a small cuboid like a cigarette packet. Make them hotpluggable and have some shit-hot firmware solution s
  • I had a similar kit when I was a kid. It was a series of 1" cube green plastic pieces. Four of the edges had puzzle-piece like connectors with embedded metal. Some of the pieces were double-long, to accomodate extra connections. On the face it had the symbol for the component inside. These were really cool, I built hundreds of things from the book, buzzers, lie detectors (galvanic response), light-controlled devices, etc. I can't remember the name, came with about 120 pieces. It was extremely easy to use an
  • I skimmed the site and the /. comments, but didn't learn (a) what eblocks cost or (b) where/if they can be purchased Perhaps someone can post a reply that answers these questions.

    My guesses:

    (a) > $10/unit. (Somewhere on the site I read about $1/CPU. That's probably an in-bulk price. The board, case, battery, etc. are not zero cost.)

    (b) Units are not available, and there is no firm timetable for availability. (Otherwise something would be prominent on the site, or in the /. thread.)

    If my gue

  • Wayne Gramlich, of the Homebrew Robotics club of Silicon Valley (http://www.hbrobotics.org/), has had a similar project for years; he's released the source, schematics, and gerber plots for his RoboBricks work under some sort of public license.

    http://robobricks.net/

    It looks like he's also got a commercial interest in building these:

    http://robobricks.com/

    But I'm not sure what the status of that is.

    I'm kind of surprised eblocks didn't include a courtesy link...
  • eBlocks don't run Linux, but this really small electronic logic blocks device [xilinx.com] sure does [xilinx.com]. How about an interface eBlock, that connects these simple sensor/actuator networks to the awesome power of a fully operational logic array?

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