MIT Research News' Journal

Power (of electronics) to the people
MIT Media Lab alumna and entrepreneur Ayah Bdeir SM ’06 wants to help all people worldwide, tech savvy or not, understand and build creatively with electronics.

It’s the ambitious mission powering her fast-growing startup littleBits, which sells a library of small modules (called “Bits modules”) integrated with electronic functions — such as lights, sounds, and motors — that snap together with magnets for do-it-yourself (DIY) prototyping.

“The mission is to put the power of electronics in everyone’s hands,” says Bdeir, the littleBits CEO who founded her company in 2011 based on an open-source-electronics concept that took shape years before at MIT.

The New York-based company, which recently closed an $11 million funding round and has sold hundreds of thousands of “Bits modules,” has caught media buzz and earned praise in technology and entrepreneurial circles across the globe.

As an open-source company, littleBits — which provides its circuit diagrams freely on its website — has also positioned Bdeir as a pioneer of today’s “maker movement,” a rising culture emphasizing DIY hardware and technology.

Bdeir has been involved with the movement since its early days: Back in 2009, she co-founded the annual Open Hardware Summit, which was held last year at MIT.

Now, as a “maker” pioneer, Bdeir aims to help “democratize” electronics, shifting the power of invention from experts to the public. In a way, Bdeir says, it resembles how 3-D printing enabled small-parts manufacturing at home, and how advancements in computer technology allowed people to create their own games and software.

“Big technologies that have transformed our society have typically started in the hands of experts and large companies, and then someone democratized them into the hands of everyone,” she says. “So that’s what we’re doing for electronics.”

Last year, Fast Company named Bdeir one of the 100 most creative people in business. The startup itself has earned numerous awards from family, design, and technology organizations.

Next-generation Legos

Dubbed “Legos for the iPad generation” in various media reports, the company’s electronic-integrated “Bits modules” are square-inch, color-coded plastic chips with tabs that hold the connecting magnets. Blue bits are power sources, such as USB and coin-battery power; pinks are inputs, such as sensors and triggers; greens are outputs, such as buzzers, lights, and fans; and oranges are extending wires.

There are more than 50 bits (up to a dozen in each category) that, according to the company, can combine to create more than 150,000 different circuit combinations.

Children and adults can use littleBits to create original projects such as motorized toys, interactive art displays, flashlights, and even musical instruments (with a newly released Synth Kit that enables professional and amateur musicians to make their own modular synthesizers). But littleBits also provides instructions on its website for devices, such as a motorized mount for an iPhone that tilts and pans, or small robots that serve food and drink.

As they build, littleBits users better understand electronics. “It’s an easy, easy way for kids to get started on electronics and making interactive objects. But we take care to not dumb down the electronics in any way for adults,” says Bdeir, who spent her childhood playing with Legos, and electricity and chemistry kits.

Bits are sold individually or in kits that contain anywhere from 10 to 45 bits. Although most customers are parents with kids or educators who use the devices in their classroom, Bdeir says a growing number of engineers, artists, and entrepreneurs are using the modules for early prototyping. “It’s a diverse crowd,” she says.

Since 2012, New York’s Museum of Modern Art has been using bits to power 4-foot-tall kinetic sculptures made of wood, cardboard, and acrylic displayed in its shop window.

Combining creativity and engineering

Despite her entrepreneurial success, Bdeir never actually set out to start a company. littleBits was about realizing a dream that took shape while Bdeir was a student in the Media Lab, which, she says, “changed my life.”

As an undergraduate at the American University of Beirut, Bdeir focused on computer engineering, but found the subject “dry and uncreative,” so set out to study business. During an internship in Boston, she visited the Media Lab, where she saw “the huge power that comes from combining creativity with engineering.”

Inspired, she enrolled in the computer culture program and joined the Media Lab’s Computing Culture Group, then led by Chris Csikszentmihalyi. There, she worked on the Number 6 project, a platform that enables electronically inexperienced artists and designers to create computational artwork using microcontrollers.

That experience led her “to think about technology as a creative tool, as a form of expression, as something that you can reinvent,” she says. Coupled with her independent work — which focused on tinkering with wearable devices and robotics, and designing interactive spaces — she became fascinated with the process of building and inspiring others to build.

“At one point, I became more interested in the tools than the product and the outcome,” she says. “I got interested in, ‘How do you put a powerful tool in the hands of people that are not experts? How do you enable an artist to use lights, or enable a designer to prototype with sound and sensors?’”

But this broad concept — to bring electronics to the masses — wouldn’t manifest itself as littleBits until 2008, when the idea became unshakable. “It was a problem I was trying to solve and became obsessed with,” says Bdeir, who was then a fellow at New York’s Eyebeam Art + Technology Center.

Building littleBits

In between her fellowship, teaching technology and culture at New York University, and founding a “hackerspace” in her native Beirut, Bdeir developed crude prototypes for littleBits: pieced-together cardboard blocks equipped with copper tape and soldered-on electronics.

As time went on, the designs evolved: Bdeir made advanced circuit boards, tweaked the magnetic connecters, and revamped the designs. More than 20 prototypes and three years later, she had come to a viable product and issued a factory-made prototype. She tested the waters at various technology conferences, such as the Maker Faire, a national conference that showcases arts and DIY technologies. Encouragement to commercialize came quickly, and unexpectedly.

“Every once in a while the press would cover it or I’d bring it to Maker Faire and people would mob the booth, and that encouraged me to keep going,” she says.

In December 2011, her first order of hundreds of kits arrived — and sold out in two weeks.

Throughout 2012, Bdeir expanded her team and the company ramped up production out of its Greenwich Village headquarters to meet demand. In that time, Bdeir made one key business decision — to immediately ship internationally, which can be difficult for a fledgling startup.

This decision not only contributed to the rapid rise of littleBits — which now ships to more than 60 countries — but supported Bdeir’s original vision of a universally accepted product. “Since day one, it had to be something that appealed to people independent of their gender, nationality, or language,” she says. In that way, it also encourages young girls to engineer, she says.

Although Bdeir initially shifted focus only grudgingly from her engineering passion to business strategy, she’s accepted her new role as CEO, with a team of 30 now helping to craft her vision.

“Something was once a sketch in your head and suddenly it took life and has legs and people are taking it to places that you never thought of,” she says. “It’s very rewarding.”

Seeing beauty in a materials science world
Growing up in a family of artists and musicians, Colleen Loynachan had every intention of following suit to become a photojournalist. She was raised in a Los Angeles neighborhood she describes as “eclectic and dynamic” — a perfect backdrop for a curious teenager with a camera and an eye for arresting images.

It wasn’t until she applied for a research position at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles through her high school’s science research program that Loynachan considered a science-centric path. The summer before her senior year of high school, she worked as a researcher in the lab of the hospital’s surgical chief, Henri Ford. She joined a team investigating biomarkers for necrotizing enterocolitis, a potentially deadly inflammatory disease that can eat away at the intestines of premature infants. The project held special interest for Loynachan, who had suffered from gastrointestinal issues as a child.

Throughout that summer, she learned standard laboratory techniques, such as preparing cell cultures and performing gel electrophoresis. She also presented her findings, along with other researchers, at weekly lab meetings.

“It was the first time I was contributing to science in a meaningful way,” Loynachan says. “Through my research, I felt I could make a positive impact on the quality of life for others.”

Colleen Loynachan Photo: Allegra Boverman

That experience prompted her to consider a career in the sciences — although art, Loynachan says, is still never far from her mind. Today, as an MIT senior, she is working in the lab of Polina Anikeeva, the AMAX Career Development Assistant Professor in Materials Engineering, using magnetic nanoparticles to noninvasively manipulate amyloid beta protein aggregates associated with Alzheimer’s disease. Much of her time in the lab is spent using an electron microscope to examine the effects of her nanoparticle treatment.

“I observe protein fibers entangled into a large plaque decorated with nanoparticles that I have selectively targeted to the protein,” Loynachan says. “It’s really incredible to witness the experiments develop into a beautiful portrait. The patterns that I observe in my photography strongly recall the scientific images I’m creating.”

Loynachan is one of four MIT seniors who have been awarded Marshall Scholarships to study in the United Kingdom after graduation. She will head to Imperial College London, where she hopes to pursue two master’s degrees, one in biomedical engineering with biomaterials, and the other in biomedical research. She also plans to keep up with her photography, taking her camera along to explore the English landscape.

‘Beautiful ambiguity’

Vivid imagery was never in short supply at Loynachan’s home. Her father, a percussionist and mixed media artist, filled the family’s backyard with sculptures and totem poles, which she used as fodder for her photography. Loynachan’s mother, an amateur photographer and art instructor, ignited her passion for photography; she was soon hooked.

In 2009, one of Loynachan’s photographs was singled out for a Spotlight Award — an honor given to talented young artists in Southern California. The image, titled “Caged,” was of a red birdcage sitting on cracked pavement layered with splattered paint. “There’s a beautiful ambiguity to the portrait that I liked,” Loynachan says.

She juggled a variety of side jobs throughout her junior and senior years of high school, including working in live music venues. Three to four nights a week, Loynachan worked as an usher at one of two concert venues: the Hollywood Palladium and the Wiltern Theatre, where she helped manage event logistics for entertainers ranging from Katy Perry to Bob Dylan and Motley Crüe in a creative, sometimes chaotic environment.

“I loved the strobing lights and pulsating energy of the live performances,” Loynachan recalls. “I’m sometimes reminded of this imagery on a microscale when I’m performing fluorescence imaging in a darkroom to observe the activation of neurons.”

An intro to materials science

After graduating from high school, Loynachan headed to MIT, drawn by the Institute’s spirit of collaboration and enterprise. She was unsure what field to pursue until she took an introductory course in solid-state chemistry, where she first heard of materials science. After learning of the discipline’s diverse applications, from energy to medicine, Loynachan chose to focus her studies on materials science and engineering.

Soon after, she joined Anikeeva’s then-fledgling lab, helping to build up the group and develop research projects. One of Loynachan’s first projects used nanoparticles to stimulate neurons associated with neurological disorders. The project came with a good deal of responsibility; she was given the opportunity to plan out and troubleshoot experiments independently, but with the support of her group. Undaunted, she found that she welcomed the challenges, discoveries, and unknowns of laboratory work.

“Having a creative perspective has enabled me to tackle these interdisciplinary materials science problems,” Loynachan says.

During the summer after her sophomore year, she worked as a research fellow at the California Institute of Technology with Julia Greer, a professor of materials science and mechanics. The group was investigating the properties of materials at the nanoscale, and Loynachan helped to fabricate 60-nanometer-wide platinum pillars — a scale that had not previously been achieved. The researchers then subjected the pillars to various forces and found that, contrary to conventional theory, the nanopillars were 40 percent weaker than bulk materials. The results, which will help to guide the development of micro- and nanoscale devices, were published in the journal Nano Letters — Loynachan’s first authored publication.

Creating connections

Loynachan spent the spring semester of her junior year in the U.K., where she worked as a biomaterials researcher at Oxford University, helping to develop self-inflating hydrogels that stimulate skin growth for reconstructive surgeries. While there, Loynachan visited Imperial College London, where graduate students were presenting their research at a science festival. Much of their research, she noted, depended on collaboration among departments — a multidisciplinary approach that appealed to Loynachan.

She also learned that many students there are involved in outreach programs that focus on empowering elementary school students through science and math education — something in which Loynachan hopes to take part next year. She’s already had some experience as an advocate for science: At MIT, she is president of the Society of Undergraduate Materials Scientists, which organizes events and develops experiments to give incoming students a taste for the field. She also arranges informal dinners with faculty members to give students an opportunity to get to know professors outside of the classroom, and is a teaching assistant for an introductory materials science laboratory class for sophomores.

“Scientific progress doesn’t occur in a vacuum, and you’re continually collaborating with so many people,” Loynachan says. “Creating those connections is really important.”

Through her research at MIT and elsewhere, Loynachan has maintained connections with many researchers and mentors who have helped her arrive at where she is today. These connections may even develop into professional collaborations as Loynachan expands her research goals. Currently, she is manipulating nanoparticles that could be used to treat neurological disorders. In the future, she hopes to apply similar techniques to the study of cancer metastasis.

“Nanotechnology is revolutionizing medicine from the way we diagnose disease to the way we treat it,” Loynachan says. “I really want to be involved at the forefront of designing biomaterials, collaborating with medical research facilities to translate novel therapeutic devices into a clinical setting.”