LittleBits, Backyard Brains, MakerBot at TED

I’m here at TED2012 in Long Beach, CA!  I interviewed Ayah Bdeir, the founder and lead engineer of littleBits, an open source library of electronic modules that snap together with tiny magnets for prototyping and play. littleBits won Popular Science’s “Best of Toy Fair 2012” and Ayah was named a TED Fellow this year.

Gregory Gage of Backyard Brains also showed me how to measure the electrical activity of a neuron in a cockroach leg. At around the 12:00 minute mark, Gregory pumps the electrical signal from music on his iPhone into the cockroach’s leg, causing it to twitch in time with the beat. (The cockroach’s leg will grow back.)

Here’s a short interview with Bre Pettis, co-founder of MakerBot Industries. He shares news about the new Replicator 3D printer, and the printing of an old school mechanical clock with an escapement mechanism. (I called it a “catchment mechanism” in the video — oops.”)

[Cross-posted from BoingBoing]