Juicing up building blocks
TAU physicist crowdfunds an electric building kit and helps bring STEM education to children
Most of us probably remember playing with building blocks, whether it was LEGO or some other set of tiny colorful plastic bricks that could be assembled into a myriad shapes. Playing with games designed for learning physics and electrical circuits was rarer, however. It required batteries and wires – not something most parents would feel comfortable letting younger kids handle.
Dr. Boaz Almog, a physicist at the Raymond & Beverly Sackler School of Physics & Astronomy at Tel Aviv University, observed his son taking a break from playing with building blocks to construct one such electricity kit, only to come to a startling realization.
"Although he was successful in building the kit," Dr. Almog said, "when I asked him what he’d built and what kind of circuit it was, he had no clue what I was talking about. I realized that he was just following the instructions without realizing what he’s doing, without seeing the greater picture and the science behind it."
Later, Dr. Almog's son went back to his favorite game – LEGOTM blocks – and an idea for a game-changing product was born. BRIXO: a set of electricity-conducting building blocks that could be used interchangeably with existing toy sets, such as LEGOTM bricks. The benefit of BRIXO is that it could add motion and sound sensors, Bluetooth and other features into designs that would otherwise be static.
To finance the project Dr. Almog and his partner Amir Saraf (pictured above) turned to crowdfunding, where they've managed to raise over a million dollars so far, with over 411,000 backers contributing.
The 'Windows' of building blocks
Dr. Almog describes his product as "the 'Windows' of science kits and building blocks." Before Windows, operating systems required a user to type commands into a black screen, but Windows changed everything by making things visual. Instead of typing a line of code to put a document into a folder, a user could simply drag a box across the screen from one spot to another. BRIXO is the same way, according to Dr. Almog. "It lets you see what you do, see what you build. The circuit is always in front of you."
Dr. Almog hopes his product will have the same transformative effect that Windows did for operating systems, allowing more people to participate in the digital revolution. His dream is for BRIXO to be used not just as a toy but also as a platform for formal STEM education. "From teaching the basics of electricity and mechanics to elementary schools kids to advanced electronic learning in high-schools to build much more sophisticated circuits."
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