Introducing a different way to learn digital logics

[codelectron]

Hi All,

We have made a product called Tinion, www.tinion.com . It is an educational toolkit to learn digital logics.It can be used as a tool to learn logic gates, sequential logic, combinational logic upto bulding your own CPU. Its easy plug and play interface, attractive colors and shapes (based on international standards) allows it to be a product of all ages and experience levels.

It can be used by:
 kids to make science projects involving logics thus enhancing their critical thinking,
 youngsters to learn digital logic and know how a computer works,
 beginner programmers to understand programming from a hardware point of view.

The prototype of the first stage of logic gates is ready. The future roadmap is also planned, but we need funding from the first level to go to the next levels. Hence we are planning to go for crowd-funding this fall.

We would like to have your views, suggestions, tips.

P.S  : We have created a poll so kindly vote your likes or dislikes regarding this product.    


Thanks,
Tinion Team.
www.tinion.com

[free_electron]

the idea is good but there is one catastrophical failure in it.
the shape of the gates .... at least use the shape that is standard in the industry ! or put the industry standard symbols on it .
introducing a new standard is a no-no !

[codelectron]

Hi free_electron,

Thanks for the inputs, Yes we already have inputs about the same from  people in Germany to put IEC Symbols embossed on the layout.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logic_gate#Symbols

And we are working putting the industry standard symbols embossed on the gates. Speaking from circuit design and 3D printing/Plastic point of view this is the best shape which we could achieve without disturbing the existing standards. We are definitely in no interest to make new standard or confuse people with symbols. I come from India educated in India and we follow US standard and later I came to Germany for higher education and here it is the European standard, so at the best to fit all, I can only try to emboss as many representations I can but personally I follow the US standard and I tried to represent it as much as I can.

Thanks,
Tinion Team.

[edavid]

It looks neat, but I don't see the purpose of it.  You can have a nice simulator on a computer where the student can have as many gates as desired, and they are the right shape, or any shape.   It's not quite as tangible, but it is so much cheaper and more flexible.  The only market I can think of for the plastic block version is people who want to learn digital logic, but don't want to use a computer, which is ridiculous.

[Dave]

I think it's a neat approach to teaching kids about digital electronics. Get them interested while they are young.

I do agree with free_electron, though. Embossing the cases with the correct symbols is just not enough - the cases themselves should look like the standard symbols (or at least closely resemble them; attaching the circle to the tip of a NOT gate would be impossible if you wanted to do it just the way it's drawn). As for the design choice, I would go with the ANSI standard of logic symbols, as opposed to the IEC standard, which isn't that commonly used in the industry. You might, however, run into trouble, if you want to get this into European schools and possibly receive funding from EU.

I'd say the best bet would be to use plain rectangular enclosures with according symbols stamped / embossed on top. Use a nice color contrast to make sure the symbol really sticks out. Oddly shaped enclosures will just be confusing. You want them to memorize the symbol, not the enclosure, so make them rectangular.

Another thing I would add: LEDs. I'd put a red/green bicolor LED (with these LEDs you can even use yellow to denote High Z output state) on every input and output of each logic block. It would make it that much easier to track the states in a circuit.

Just my 2 cents.

[Dave]

While I was checking the site, I couldn't help but notice this:

The clock block consist of an adjustable knob using which the user can generate clocks ticks between 1 to 4 second delay.

Yes, I am THAT childish sometimes.

[zapta]

Very interesting idea. You can make it a little bit more refined and you will need to figure out what is the target market and how to market it, this is typically the hard part.

I taught my son logic from a very young age, even before numbers and counting  ("to make a cake we need flour AND water AND an oven, can we make it without water?"). Something like this would be very useful and fun.