What would you get if you crossed the DIY spirit of MAKE and its sister pub CRAFT, the power and digital sophistication of LEGO Mindstorms, and the childhood charm of macaroni and yarn art? You may get something like PicoCricket. Like its nerdier big brother, Mindstorms, PicoCricket grew out of a collaboration between the LEGO company and MIT’s Media Lab, and both building sets include electronics and a microcontroller, but PicoCricket is designed to appeal to a wider range of young builders, and to allow for much more diverse creations. To assist in this, along with the electronics, LEGO pieces, and the computer “brain,” the kit also contains more traditional kid crafting materials, right down to the pipe cleaners, glittery bits, and googley eyes.
The PicoCricket is not actually made by LEGO, although it contains LEGO components. LEGO partially funded the Toronto start-up, Playful Invention Company (PICO), that developed the kit and it provides the LEGO pieces under an agreement with PICO.
Read the entire piece about the PicoCricket at BusinessWeek.
Visit MIT’s Cricket site.
And PICO’s site.