Tindie

Name: Lightino STEM Spinner
SKU: 10234
Price: 39.00 USD
Availability: OutOfStock
Rating: 3.50 (2 reviews)

Lightino STEM Spinner

(2 Reviews)

Learn to code with this fidget spinner

Designed by MakerStorage in United States of America

$39.00

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Out of Stock

Sold out since Dec 23, 2017

I am developing electronic boards for Makers.

Learn to code with this fidget spinner

I am thinking for a while about how to teach young generation coding funnily. We all know it is essential to learn how to code, but it is not so easy. It takes time, and most of the young learners give up and fail at the beginning. You need something interesting to continue and try many times even you fail one after the other. It requires more time and practice than you might expect, so you need a feedback mechanism that motivates you on trying without giving up. It is an absolute truth that Fidget Spinners finds its way into the hearts of young people. I decided to use this popularity and create a fidget spinner with RGB LEDs and Arduino. It was a combination of two things that I love the most.

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Features:

Pro Micro
Lipo Battery 3.7V, 70mAh
698 long turning Bearing
8 RGB LEDs
optical rotation sensor

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Quantity	Price
1-14	$39.00
15+	$29.00

Review Breakdown

Average Ratings

Product: (4.00)

Documentation: (3.00)

Shipping: (3.00)

Communication: (4.00)

David | Dec. 18, 2017

Pretty neat spinner. Mechanical design could be better

This is a great idea. Unfortunately, there are a lot of small issues that add up to a rather frustrating product.

It needs a better bearing, it should be a bit heavier, it doesn't really work without the plastic insert that goes into the bearing, and the bearing is too small to use just with your fingers. The creator said they didn't include the plastic insert because you can "print one yourself!" I thought this was because it would work without that piece, but this is not the case. The ir needs a really tight clearance to trigger and your finger alone isn't enough to do this reliably. That and the bearing is much smaller than a normal fidget spinner, which makes it hard to use just with your fingers. Finally, due to the bearing and the mass, it doesn't spin very long. For one the bearing feels very cheap and seems to have a lot of friction which slows the spinner down. Additionally, the spinner itself is light. The creator added a washer (not present in the tindie pics) to it in an attempt to help this, but it's still no where near heavy enough. I can reliably get it to spin fast enough for POV to work for about maybe 5 seconds after which the spinner slows down too much.

A few small improvements would make an excellent product:
- Switch to a standard fidget spinner bearing so that normal fingers can use it
- Add weights to the ends of the spinner to give it more inertia
- Include bearing inserts so that the ir sensor triggers reliably
- Switch to a higher quality bearing with less friction so that it spins a long time

Christoph | Oct. 7, 2017