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By Stephen Press
Hometown Weekly Staff
The afternoon light streams through Sherborn Library, bathing its space with a warm, calm glow. Regulars quietly sit, browsing through stacks of books and quietly scanning periodicals. The amiable librarians go about their business, keeping the space ship-shape.
Then, there is the sound of a noisemaker, not unlike that of an apartment buzzer.
It sounds again, this time accompanied by the mechanical cranking of what sounds like a model train engine.
Finally, it sounds a third time. This time, though, a child’s laugh gives away its origin.
Just around the corner and between some of the stacks of books, a clutch of schoolchildren play with littleBits. Running on a 9-volt battery and snapping together with magnets, littleBits are, if you can imagine it, somewhere between a Brio train set and a circuit board. Each littleBits module magnetically attaches to compatible pieces, allowing children to build simple working circuits that flash, move and make noise - and all without a soldering iron or schematic in sight.
If the captivated looks on the kids’ faces are to be trusted, they’re pretty popular.
"They're in second grade,” says Barbara Murphy as she watches her granddaughter, Lexie Gentile, snapping some littleBits together. “They have a half-day today, and the kids are out. We saw this was an option of something different to do. We thought that it might be fun to experiment and try it out."
Despite this being her first time playing with littleBits, Lexie has already assembled a device with a rotating fan-blade.
"It's all kind of color-coded, so it's easy to do,” observes Murphy. “It's magnetic. It's sort of 'no-fail.' Things are flashing, things are blinking, things are vibrating."
Count Cheryl Ouellette, Children’s Librarian at the Sherborn Library, as a happy camper.
"The wave of the future is trying to teach them STEM - science, technology, engineering, math,” she says, watching a table of boys construct ever-more-complex designs. "It's so that they can have fun while they get to try out electronics and circuits. They get a little bit of technology knowledge, and have a good time at the same time. It's fairly easy for the kids, because these circuits come together magnetically. If they don't come together magnetically, they won't work. If they do come together, they will. They can get them to spin, turn, light up, make little noises…"
At her feet, young Kyle Wetjen takes a moment to demonstrate his electromagnetic contraption. It is a snaking device involving a noisemaker, some flashing LEDs, two switches, and a bunch of other modules whose respective purposes, he admits, he doesn’t know.
That, it seems, is part of the point of littleBits. They enable curious children to safely experiment with basic engineering, learning through trial-and-error rather than in hypotheticals.
"I do it usually once a month,” continues Ouellette. “I do have some regular kids who come, and then I have some new kids. It can be varied."
The only guarantee, it seems, is a good time.
The Sherborn Library’s next littleBits drop-in will be held on Wednesday, November 2, from 3:30 - 4 p.m.
