Chibitronics at Home - STEM Starter Kit

Now that we have dipped our toes into the Chibitronics environment, let's take a look at a more in-depth kit and see what kind of projects it offers. The Chibitronics STEM starter kit comes with:

• 1 Circuit Sticker Sketchbook with 5 projects and debugging section

• 2 Binder Clips to hold your coin cell battery in your projects

• 2 Coin Cell Batteries to power your circuit stickers

• 1 Roll of Copper Tape 

• 3 White, Red, Blue, and Yellow LED Circuit Stickers

• 1 Black Conductive Sheet

The kit comes packaged in a small cardboard box that is covered in dotted-cut-outs and little-arrowed instructions to kit out the box itself with circuits. Today we are going to take a look at just one project from this Kit, The DIY Switch Project. It’s a step up from the intro pack tutorial we did earlier and provides good insight to the level of content that comes with these kits.

Each of the 5 projects in the STEM Starter Kit follows a similar template as the DIY switch circuit shown below:

1. Project Outline – A brief outline of the concept behind the project and how it is applied using Chibitronics
   
2. Materials Needed – An illustrated, quantified list of materials required for the project. All of these parts come with the kit the only thing you need to provide will be craft materials (see our tasty gif at the end of this article).
3. Directions – A detailed and illustrated step-by-step on the project.
   
4. Project Template – A full page with outlines and labels to be used alongside the directions
   
5. Your Turn – Your own space to replicate the concept without guides. Gives space for additional artwork to be added
   
6. Try This – This section extends the simple concept you have learned into a more advanced concept. For a simple switch, we can see that an extension of that concept is placing these switches in series and parallel to learn basic logic concepts.
   

After following the simple directions for this project (Picture 2/3) above. We made a simple switch circuit, turning the page over we had some room to add in a little artwork to our design. Here’s what we came up with:

Hopefully, you have a better idea of what Chibitronics means and what comes in your STEM kit. There are heaps of projects in the kit, not to mention tons of reusability after you learn all the concepts. It's super simple and fun! If you have any questions about Chibitronics don't hesitate to get in touch!