Glimt · Swedish for a flash

Electronics you can touch.

Put a block on the steel plate and it is live. Power, a switch, a light: three blocks and the LED is on. No wires, no breadboard, no code to start.

Play with the blocksGet on the list
Black Glimt blocks joined in an L on a steel plate: a button block, wire blocks with white traces and an LED block
The real blocks, on the plate.

Simulation

Play with the blocks

Build your own
Power block: two AA cells
LED block

First light

Tap the switch, or build your own.

How it works

The plate is the circuit.

Every circuit is a loop. On GLIMT the steel plate is half of that loop, so you only build the other half. That is why three blocks are enough.

Lay down the plate

A sheet of nickel-plated steel with a dot grid. It holds every block with magnets and carries the current home.

Snap blocks together

Each side has a sprung gold contact between two magnets. Any side meets any side, with a click.

Read it off the top

Every block wears its own circuit symbol and wiring. What sits on your table is the drawing, so the drawing makes sense.

Original photograph of black Glimt blocks with corner screws, white paths and metal connectors

Feel how it works before you read about it.

Swap the switch for a light sensor and the LED follows the room. Add a distance sensor and a buzzer and you have a parking beeper. You learn what a block does by putting it down and watching. The theory shows up after, printed on the block you just used.

The blocks

The blocks

Seventeen blocks. The colour on top says what a block does.

powerlightinput and sensorssoundmotionpartswires
PowerTwo AA cells, 3 V. Everything starts here.
LED redLights up. Has its own resistor, so it never burns.
LED greenThe same, in green.
SwitchOn or off. Stays where you put it.
ButtonOn while you press it.
Light sensorLets more current through when the room is bright.
Distance sensorSwitches on when something comes closer than 20 cm.
BuzzerThis one makes noise.
MotorSpins a little fan.
CapacitorFills up with charge, then lets it go slowly.
TransistorA small signal opens the way for a big one.
100 ΩHolds back a little current.
1 kΩHolds back ten times more.
Pull-down 10kGives a sensor a path to the plate.
WireCarries the current across.
CornerTurns the path.
T junctionSplits it in two.

What you can build

Six builds to start with.

The blocks each one uses, left to right. Each takes a minute to put down and an evening to play with.

First light

Power, switch, LED. Flip it and the LED comes on.

Parking beeper

Bring your hand closer than 20 cm and it beeps.

Light follower

The LED brightens and dims with the light in the room.

Slow fade

Let go of the button and the light dies out over a few seconds.

Fan on a touch

A tiny press through the transistor starts the motor.

Two lights

Split the path and both LEDs glow. Pull one and see what the other does.

Who it's for

Anyone who wants to know how a thing works.

Makers

Try an idea in a minute before you solder anything.

Designers

Feel how a sensor behaves in your hand before it goes into a product.

Kids and parents

No reading needed for the first light. The questions come by themselves.

Classrooms

Class sets of 16 plates, one per pair, packed in one box. Ask us about a pilot.

One box for a whole class.

Sixteen plates and sixteen trays of twenty blocks, sorted by colour so a tray can be counted back in at a glance. Every power block has a resettable fuse: a short circuit warms nothing and fixes itself.

First batch

Put one down.
Watch it light.

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