Everyone knows that people, and especially kids, learn better when they’re having fun. But not everyone starts a company to make that happen. Not everyone is Alicia Gibb.
Alicia Gibb is an inventor with a background in art education and information science, which puts her in a sort of sweet spot when it comes to STEAM education. She started her company, Lunchbox Electronics, to sell products she’s created to help fill an underserved niche in kids’ learning: Making learning about electronics easy, accessible, and most of all fun.
Lunchbox Electronics launched a successful Kickstarter campaign earlier this year for their newest product, called Build-Upons, which are 1×1 LEGO-compatible blocks that light up in various colors using LEDs. And those are pretty awesome, but that’s far from all the company makes. Most of their products (all LEGO-compatible, which works towards both accessibility and fun) are kits that help teach kids (or grownups – they don’t discriminate) who already know the basics of soldering how to use that skill with electronics, and in the process assemble some pretty interesting projects. To make them even easier, there are video instructions on how to use them.
Their Stop and Go Kit, which sells for just $14.95, is a great introductory DIY kit to assemble, as the name suggests, a LEGO-based facsimile of a traffic light. For a more advanced and more versatile kit, their Novelty LED Matrix Board ($49.95) would be a great gift for any kid who wants to make their own electronics but isn’t quite ready to start from scratch.
If you know someone with more electronics experience, Lunchbox also sells bags of Novelty LED Bricks (50 of one color for $29.95 or two each of five different colors for $9.95) in several colors for integration with any circuit board.
Lunchbox Electronics’ Build-Upons promise to bring even more versatility to their educational products – and we’ll have more on those early next year when they go on sale. In the meantime, though, any of their kits would make a great gift for the young, or young-at-heart, electronics enthusiast on your holiday list.
