Pack your bags and come to the island of Podpi, a place where adorable cartoon characters teach you electronics projects, javascript, and how to have a maker mindset.
Podpi is a service that takes a pretty fun approach to teaching kids. There is a comic at the core of everything, which is filled with interesting characters. There’s also a box full of supplies that come with each delivery if you choose that option. Those supplies correspond to the lessons in the story, allowing your student to be amused while learning how to build and program circuits.
Of course, signing up for any kind of a service like this can be a big decision, so take a glance at these examples. I personally really feel like the creators have put incredible effort into making it both visually appealing and educational. These illustrations are pretty, but they’ve also got easy to follow circuits and code. The speech bubble comments on the code are especially nice!
You don’t have to sign up for a monthly box service if you don’t want to. You can also just get the comics if you would rather source all the associated parts yourself or already have them lying around.
What actually drew me to Podpi wasn’t the comic, it was a piece of digital jewelry I saw! The folks behind Podpi realized that the ability to put all this new knowledge together into something that could be worn and shown off might be a good idea, so they created the leddywear. It is a small, programmable board with a few LEDs that is meant to be turned into a wearable circuit or jewelry.
The Leddywear comes in several different colors, both as a bare unit or within a kit (such as a DIY watch). These wire wrapped examples of simple jewelry pieces really show off the system quite well.
You’re not limited to minimal designs though. In the example below, you can see how they created a Makey robot with articulated joints!
Podpi puts out new content every month, so be sure to check in on them frequently.
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