LittleBits: Easy way to get started with electronics

Growing up in the 70's, I learned electronics from Denshi blocks:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denshi_block

Still one of the most amazing toys I've ever seen - nothing can prepare you for the pleasures of assembling, lego-style, a circuit - and then it works!

I loved it so much I've now sort of become a bit of an EBay junky, trying to find Denshi blocks for my kids to play with .. all I've found so far is the cheap clone ripoff, but I hope to one day have a full collection of the real thing soon enough. I'd love to have the Denshi block system that came with a small synthesizer chip, for example .. this would be a fabulous toy for my 6 year old and 3 year old to play with together.

The more I think about it, the more I feel like we've sort of lost something that toys like this didn't persist in the marketplace and are just now being "re-invented" by new generations. It'd be great if Denshi blocks came back on the market .. maybe an open source version makes more sense now, though.

Folks complaining about price - I think about Legos. Given what they are, they are really expensive. And yet, growing up, I wanted every present I got to be Legos.

Even if Littlebits has a smaller market because of price, if it's a passionate market they'll grow and so better be able to offer a range of different sized products with variable pricing. As a hardware startup, that's a far better route than to expect scale that may take a while to arrive.

Just checked em out, they look pretty cool! Are you sure they aren't still in the market? I mean didn't you check the manufacturer's site? (i cant cuz it's in japanese and google services don't work in my office) but i did manage to find a blog post[1] about them from 2 years ago.

[1]http://threestepsoverjapan.blogspot.com/2011/12/gakken-kit-3...

Yeah, they re-released the EX150 series .. I have one of the new ones, but I really prefer the older kits that were released in the 70's and 80's - the synth component, for example was pretty badass. (Sorry I didn't make it clear that I was an Ebay junky looking for the older kits..)

I suppose its irrelevant these days; I could just wire up my own new Denshi blocks with ease, and it'd be a good reason to polish up my Japanese .. there is a thriving Denshi culture, but it seems to have withdrawn into Japan.

For some reason Denshi blocks never caught on out in the West; but I think - as we see with this new-school effort - there are still tinkerers out there who yearn for such modularity. In the case of Denshi in the 70's, I think it was more that kids just lost the blocks too easily. Magnets help, I guess!

EDIT: Exploring the subject a little more, I realize that in fact Denshi blocks are thriving in Japan .. in fact look at this great picture:

http://otonanokagaku.net/feature/vol27/0ku8jv00000006xr-img/...

I now have a reason for a 3d printer. :) (Another one, anyway)