i'm here at makercon with aya badeer
from littlebits you just gave a talk and
you talked about the uh the hardware
development kit can you tell us about a
little bit about it
sure so the hardware development kit um
we just released yesterday is basically
um a set of components that makes it
easier for you to prototype with little
bits so that you can submit them to the
bit lab if you wanted um which is our
marketplace for user generated hardware
so um the hardware development kit
basically
comes with
a few different things
to make prototyping easier
the first one is the protobit which is
basically your connection to a
breadboard
a second one is a perf bit which is just
a perf board or like a blank little bits
if you want um and also a dozen of the
bit snap magnetic connectors um that you
could already sort of solder onto your
different designs and so you could get
started really quickly other people have
also bought little bits and desoldered
the magnetic connector it's too
expensive so we don't recommend that so
that's kind of the faster and easier way
the easier way to do it so if i'm a
maker and i have an idea for a bit i
should start with the hardware
development kit that's the best way to
start yeah and then i can take it then
on to the bit lab can you talk about
what the bit lab is all about and how
maker can use it so the bitlab is
basically a marketplace for
user-generated hardware it's we're
calling it the app store for hardware so
you can submit your bid
and if you get a thousand votes it goes
into vetting by little bits and we vet
for manufacturability for feasibility
for costs
and if it makes it through we'll
manufacture it and we'll give you 10 of
the sales that come out of it not a bad
deal can you show us what some people
have already done with the hardware
development kit sure so um the first
demo i have here is basically this
this module that was made by bear
conductive so if you don't know bear
conductive they make
uh well you know them but conductive
inks um and they make these wonderful
installations for wearables and for
spaces and so they made
this
bare conductive bit called the touch
sensor which i'm going to snap into
other little bits here
and
snap
a metallic surface on it and now this
becomes the sensor so now right away
i've turned any metallic surface into a
sensor and you could also connect it to
some conductive ink that they make as
well
i could also
make music out of just the any metallic
surface any conductive ink surface etc
so the second demo um is basically a
demo of the um of the bleep labs module
they make basically a drum kit that they
sell and so we work together to make a
module
that works very well with the synth kit
it's this gray one right here you have
two of them and so this is it in
action
yeah me neither i can't help you there
so we can help you with electronics but
we can help you with the music
so i think that even for someone who has
no plans to use the hardware development
kit they benefit as well because there's
all these other ideas out there and all
these other possibilities now you've got
tons of people working on possible
little bits rather than just the people
who work at little bits right yeah i
mean essentially the exciting thing is
that we've been for the past couple of
years we've uh we've had the dream bits
page on the website and thousands and
thousands of ideas have come in things
that we never even thought of we never
imagined possible and really people have
opened up our minds um but you know
you can come up with your own module
based on your own expertise whether it's
in wearables it's sustainability it's in
you know
biological sensors uh sort of things
that we may or may not get into or know
of and basically really serve your own
community
so that's what's exciting is be able to
sort of talk have different communities
talk to each other and really kind of
play nice together that's great well
thank you for uh coming by and showing
us the the hardware development kit it's
really exciting and we'll have more
videos from makercon coming on the
youtube channel