We wanted to create an intelligent construction toy for children where the bricks have no predetermined color. As the child places the initially transparent pieces on a base board they light up in different colors. The colors can not only change randomly but they can follow a pattern to get the attention of children and teach them different building tasks.
In the inside of every brick there is a PIC microcontroller with a unique id and electric connections on the top and bottom. Once a brick is placed on the base board or on the top of another brick its data line and power lines are connected. The base board also has a microcontroller that sends the commands to every brick in parallel. Every command contains a brick's id and only that brick executes that command.
We entered The Hungarian Association for Innovation's Scientific and Innovation Talent Recruitment Contest For Youth with iDuplo where we won second prize.
