Decisions
Three directions, settled
Every batch that ended with a question left both answers standing in the lab rather than picking one. These three were answered together, on one screen — which mattered, because two of them are the same question at different distances: how much a surface should say.
The losing direction is not deleted. It stays built, and it stays here, because a decision you cannot see the alternative to is not a decision anyone can revisit — the same reason eight button directions are still live at /lab/buttons.
Telemetry readout
Is a live distance a number, or a shape?
The device dock now opens on the measurement, above the board's static particulars. `Last serial output` stays below it — after a run that line reads `Barrier: closed`, not a distance.
A · The number, largeChosen
Distance
18cm
Borrows A-15's big mono verbatim rather than inventing a size. The cost is honest: at this weight a continuous reading starts to look like a gauge, and this is not an instrument panel.
B · The reading, in the dock's rhythm
The same shape as a key-value row, so it belongs to the Device tab's family instead of arriving as a widget. The trace carries no fact the number does not, which is what lets it be hidden from assistive tech without losing anything.
Project card
How much can a card say?
S-02 and S-03 are both grids of these, and both get the full inventory. The card answers what is in the box.
A · The full inventoryChosen
Breathing Lamp
15 minBeginner4 steps
3 parts- Digital pins
- LED polarity
- Timing and reaction
ReadyStart buildTraffic Light
20 minBeginner5 steps
4 parts- Digital pins
- Timing and reaction
- Conditional logic
ReadyStart buildMotion Night Light
25 minBeginner5 steps
5 parts- Digital pins
- Conditional logic
- LED polarity
ReadyStart buildPlant Guardian
35 minIntermediate6 steps
5 parts- Analogue readings
- Thresholds
- LED polarity
ReadyStart buildTouchless Soap Dispenser
40 minIntermediate6 steps
6 parts- Trigger and echo
- Distance measurement
- PWM and servo control
ReadyStart buildSmart Parking Barrier
35 minIntermediate7 steps
6 parts- Digital pins
- Trigger and echo
- PWM and servo control
ReadyStart build
All nine fields the brief asks for: the scene, the name, duration, level, step count, the component strip, the concepts it teaches, the status and the action. It answers what is in the box — you can tell at a glance whether a build needs a servo you do not own.
B · The calm grid
Breathing Lamp
One LED that swells and fades. It goes straight into the board — you do not even need the breadboard yet.
15 minBeginner4 steps
ReadyStart buildTraffic Light
Three LEDs on a breadboard: red, yellow, green, in an order that never slips.
20 minBeginner5 steps
ReadyStart buildMotion Night Light
A lamp that wakes when somebody walks past and settles back down when the hallway is quiet again.
25 minBeginner5 steps
ReadyStart buildPlant Guardian
A soil probe that watches how dry the pot is getting and lights up when the plant wants water.
35 minIntermediate6 steps
ReadyStart buildTouchless Soap Dispenser
A pump that runs when a hand comes near, so nothing has to be touched to use it.
40 minIntermediate6 steps
ReadyStart buildSmart Parking Barrier
A barrier that notices the car coming, lifts to let it through and closes again behind it.
35 minIntermediate7 steps
ReadyStart build
The same frame with the components and the concepts taken out, and one sentence put in. It answers what the build does. The bet is that seven of these read as one library while seven of the other read as seven dashboards.
Mock camera frame
How much should the camera look like a camera?
The inspection frame carries no camera furniture. `Demo vision result` and the capture time sit under the image, in the interface's own voice.
A · The capture
The frame is a photograph. Viewfinder corners, the label burned into the top left, the time in its corner, a scan you feel rather than see. It says this is what the camera saw, and the vision result is drawn on top of an image. The cost is exactly the product's hardest promise: the more it reads as a real frame, the more work Demo vision result has to do on its own.
B · The plateChosen
14:32The frame is evidence, not a photograph. Nothing is printed on the image; the label and the time move underneath it, into the interface's own voice. What keeps it from being a second canvas is that it is fixed — no controls, no view switch — and that it carries annotations the canvas never draws. The cost is the other one: if it is only a still canvas with boxes on it, the modal has to justify itself some other way.