We invite you to save BIG during our annual Black Friday Sale, starting Friday 28 November and extending through Sunday 30 November!

For a limited time, use code BF2025 to enjoy 20% off all non-discounted Chibitronics products in our shop.  

*Code valid: November 28, 2025 @12:01 PT – November 30, 2025 @11:59pm PT on all non-discounted Chibitronics products. Discount pricing may not be combined with other discounts.

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Our LED Sticker Kits are a great holiday gift idea!

Chibitronics LED Circuit Sticker Kits make electronics artful! Peel, stick, and light up creative projects for young makers.

Purdue University’s 2025 Engineering Gift Guide

This year, two of our LED starter kits were reviewed and selected for inclusion in Purdue University’s 2025 Engineering Gift Guide: Microelectronics Edition — our original, best-selling STEM Starter Kit (ages 14+) and our NEW Create with STEAM: LED Sticker Kit- Level 2 (Ages 8+)!

Defining Features of Each Kit

The post Purdue’s 2025 Engineering Gift Guide Features Chibitronics appeared first on Chibitronics.

During October, Chibitronics and members of our #LightUpPopUpTober team participated in a global PopUpTober challenge. Collectively, our team created a remarkable body of glowing work, featuring 31 different pop-up mechanisms!

We are so grateful to our talented team of volunteers for sharing their time, talent, and creativity with us!

If you’d like to see the full collection of inspiring light-up pop-up creations shared by our #LightUpPopUpTober team, visit the LightUpPopUpTober 2025 Gallery!

In addition to creating a team of volunteers to help us address each of the 31 PopUpTober prompts, we extended an open invitation to our community of artists, crafters, and makers, encouraging them to join the fun. We asked that participants add light to their pop-up creations (in any way that they wished) and share them with us on Instagram, for a chance to be entered into a random drawing.

Congratulations to the two winners, @leahdipas_art and @kyleolmon!

Both winners will receive a copy of Paper Inventions 2nd Edition by our own @Kathy_Ceceri, as well as a bundle of NEW Chibitronics products, including the following:

Prize Bundles Will Include:

• 1 pack of Conductive Fabric Tape Strips
• 1 Variety pack of Launchpad LEDs (30 LEDs total
• 6-pack of White Blink Animating LED stickers
• 5-pack of Launchpad batteries 

The post Congrats to the Chibitronics #LightUpPopUpTober Team! appeared first on Chibitronics.

Chibitronics now carries NEW learner-friendly Through-Hole LEDs and easy-to-use Resistor Stickers! After hearing stories about educators using through-hole LEDs with their students to cut costs and encourage rapid prototyping, we’re excited to introduce two new products that will make this practice easier and even more educational!

The Long and Short of It

Through-hole LEDs (the ones with metal legs designed to be used in a breadboard) are often viewed as an affordable option for classrooms exploring paper circuits. However, we’ve heard that some of you have been spending precious prep time using Sharpie markers to color-code the positive or negative legs, to make them less frustrating for your students. We’ve also heard how challenging they can be during debugging, since it’s difficult to confirm their polarity once they’ve been bent open and taped down.

Our new Through-Hole LEDs make identifying the short, negative leg unmistakable—even when the LED has already been added to a circuit! That’s because we’ve shortened it significantly, making it easier to contrast with the long, positive leg! Making the legs easy to identify at a glance may help reduce frustration for new learners by making circuits easier to debug. This can save time and result in fewer broken legs.

For convenience and easy storage, our new 5mm through-hole LEDs come packaged in a plastic box containing six compartments. Each compartment contains forty LEDs in one of six colors: red, yellow, green, blue, white, and rainbow fade, color-changing LEDs.

When using bare Through-Hole LEDs without resistors, it’s a good idea to separate the warm colors from the cool colors during circuit construction. As a general rule, red and yellow LEDs (warm colors) require less power than green, blue, and white ones (cool colors). 

But, if you or your students prefer to mix warm and cool colors, we’ve got you covered!

Like Training Wheels for Resistors

We’ve heard how frustrating it can be when you (or your students) are trying to mix certain colors of through-hole LEDs together in the same circuit (red and white, for example) and are unable to get them all working at the same time.

Our NEW Resistor Stickers were designed to help balance the flow of current in your circuits, to help you light up all of the colors at once!

Unlike Circuit Sticker LEDs and Launchpad LEDs, which come with built-in resistors that enable different colors to be mixed together, bare through-hole LEDs do not. This means that LEDs with lower power requirements (red and yellow) will not play well with LEDs with higher power requirements (blue and white), unless you manually add them.

Adding Resistor Stickers allows you to help balance the flow of current in your circuits. Less fiddly than through-hole resistors, which are designed to be inserted into breadboards, Resistor Stickers are flat, sticky, and easy to use—like training wheels for resistors! 

Learn How to use Resistor Stickers:

To learn more detailed information about Through-Hole LEDs or Resistor Stickers (or to watch a video demonstration), visit: How to Use Chibitronics Resistor Stickers.

NOW Shipping!

The post Introducing NEW Chibitronics Through-Hole LEDs and Resistor Stickers appeared first on Chibitronics.

Throughout July, as part of Infosys Pathfinders Summer Institute 2025, members of the Chibitronics team hosted our most ambitious virtual professional development event to date.

Even with an expedited registration window (which occurred as a result of unprecedented interest in Summer Pathfinders courses in general) active enrollment in our classroom-tested course, Start with Art: STEAM Learning with Chibitronics Paper Circuits, increased by a whopping 26%!

As a result, we trained 84 public and charter school teachers and librarians in 30 states and provinces. Over 61% teach at Title 1 schools, amplifying our reach to underserved communities.

From K-5 to 9-12 and beyond, educators brought skills in computer science, technology, math, art, English, and library science. Together, we impacted 24,352 students across public schools, charters, and libraries. We thank you, Infosys Foundation USA, for empowering learning and driving innovation!

In addition to receiving full scholarships for hands-on virtual professional development, and FREE kits of our newest, LEARNER FRIENDLY supplies (valued at over $250), this year’s participants also benefited from systemic updates designed to make engaging with our content even easier!

Participating educators/librarians were treated to:

• flexible scheduling
• on-demand office hours
• a dynamic series of highly engaging webinars—taught by experts in the fields of education, art, graphic design, robotics, artificial intelligence, paper engineering, and programming!

Along the way, our enthusiastic, “Chibitastic” participants learned how to build simple and parallel circuits, add switches and bridges, and even operate a multimeter (to measure voltage, current, and resistance)!

They debugged!

They developed and designed!

They engaged in hands-on learning!

Participants in our summer course learned how to use resistors, pressure sensors, and our new and improved paper circuits software, Circuit Sketcher!

By enabling participants to design and test circuit templates using our real-time simulator, participants quickly innovated, experimented, and practiced designing increasingly complex circuits virtually, to conserve materials and ensure that they work in the real world!

Testimonials

Based upon testimonials that were shared with us, we learned that even educators with experience creating paper circuits deepened their learning during our summer course!

My favorite thing was getting to do hands-on learning and seeing everyone’s ideas!! I was familiar with paper circuits and felt fairly comfortable with them, but this PD took me to a whole new level!!

Sarah Robinson, High School Science Teacher

Participating in the course was amazing- I am looking forward to working with students this year to use what I have been able to learn and practice.”

Mary Amy Senn, Middle and High School Science Teacher

I’m very thankful to the Infosys Foundation USA for providing these opportunities.  As a Title One school, our funding has other focuses, and it’s difficult to get funding for things like STEM/STEAM in our schools.   It would be nice if public education was fully funded.

Edith Owens, Elementary Art Teacher

Your gift of supplies and motivational support has inspired me to get a grant and do Chibitronics with my entire 4th grade.  So far, we have done simple and parallel circuits.  Looking forward to their art ideas using the lights.  Thank you for pushing all of this cool stuff out to us so we can introduce paper circuitry to our student community.

Eileen Lengenfelder, Elementary STEAM Teacher

Special Shout-outs!

Thank you to everyone who participated or expressed interest in the Infosys Pathfinders Summer Institute 2025. With continued support from our partners at Infosys Foundation USA, we look forward to hosting our paper circuit series again next year!

Thanks also to all the past and present members of the Chibitronics team who have allowed Pathfinders to evolve over the past decade!

On board in the planning and execution of this year’s event were Jie Qi, Jessica Frost-Ballas, Barbara Liedahl, Kristin Osciecki, Kathy Ceceri, Jill Dawson, and Shiela Lee.

Special thanks also go out to our Guest Educators: Jasmine Florentine, Amanda Jean Strode of CodeJoy, Colleen Graves and Sarah Fitzhenry from Makedo!

And last, but not least, we are incredibly grateful to Infosys Foundation USA for giving full scholarships to our participating teachers and librarians, allowing them to attend and receive free bundles of Chibitronics supplies.

The post Record-Breaking Participation During Chibitronics Summer Pathfinders PD! appeared first on Chibitronics.

We’re Launching a NEW, STURDIER LED!

After spending countless hours working with educators around the world, and hearing their feedback, the Chibitronics team is thrilled to announce the release of our new Launchpad LEDs!

Like our safer, easier-to-use Launchpad Battery, our new Launchpad LEDs come with sturdy tabs that are easy to grip, sketch, and prototype with! 

Unlike our Circuit Sticker LEDs, which are designed to be used just like stickers, Launchpad LEDs are bigger, more durable, and easily reusable for learning—like training wheels for LEDs! 

Like Training Wheels for LEDs

Because they aren’t as permanent as stickers, Launchpad LEDs are perfect for tinkering, building temporary artworks, and conducting experiments. 

Since they are easy to reposition, remove, reuse, and store, they are especially ideal for learners in classroom, craftroom, and home school settings!

Like the tabs on a Launchpad Battery, the + and – polarity markings are large and easy to see—or use as a stencil.

Clear, easy-to-trace, polarity markings—cut out from each tab—will save you time and remove guesswork on where to stick your conductive tape traces! 

Made of sturdy metal, the tabs on our Launchpad LEDs may be connected to a Launchpad Battery or paper circuit with conductive tapes and even alligator clips!

This means that our Launchpad LEDs are especially ideal for building (and rebuilding!) models, as well as clipping to a variety of components and microcontrollers such as the Love to Code Chibi Chip!

NOW Shipping!

The post Introducing NEW Chibitronics Launchpad LEDs! appeared first on Chibitronics.

sketcher.chibitronics.com

1. Design and simulate your paper circuit virtually.
2. Export a printable template of your design.
3. Make your paper circuit!

TRY CIRCUIT SKETCHER

We’d love to hear your feedback on Circuit Sketcher.

Circuit Sketcher, by Chibitronics, is a digital design tool that allows you to experiment and play virtually with paper circuit components before using physical materials.

Designed with educators and students in mind, Circuit Sketcher allows you to choose from a variety of connectors, LEDs, battery holders, switches, and more!

In Circuit Sketcher you can move things around, test connections, receive immediate feedback in simulator mode, and even import your own artwork!

You can easily resize and change your design as you go—making sure everything works, fits, and aligns just the way you want it.

Once you are happy with your design, you can even export your circuit template and artwork as a printable PDF for quicker fabrication!

Learn More

The post Try Circuit Sketcher: Design Software for Paper Circuits appeared first on Chibitronics.

After considerable time, care, and investment into research and development, the Chibitronics team is pleased to announce the release of our new safer, easier-to-use 3V CR2032 Launchpad Battery!

To help protect children six years and under from potential risk of injury, the passage of Reese’s Law led to significant changes to battery warning labels and packaging requirements. As a result, Chibitronics has made sweeping modifications to our product line.

Novel in design, our Launchpad Battery is a safer, more learner-friendly option than traditional coin batteries!

Upon first glance, you’ll notice that our new battery looks very different, almost as if it has two arms raised up in a celebratory cheer! Yay!

Besides making our Launchpad Battery harder to swallow, these wing-like metal tabs enable easier gripping, sketching, and prototyping!

Shipping Now!

Clear, easy-to-trace, polarity markings—cut out from each wing—will save you time and remove guesswork on where to stick your conductive tape traces. 

Because a Launchpad Battery is easier to see, tape onto, and trace with a pen or pencil, they are an ideal choice for classrooms and other learner-centered settings!

You may also notice that our Launchpad Battery comes wrapped in a bright yellow coating that completely encases it. In addition to being a safety feature, this protective property has the added value of insulating the positive edge of the battery, shielding it from inadvertent contact with the conductive traces in your paper circuits. This can help prevent unintended connections, resulting in less frustration and longer battery life!

The label on the back side of the battery serves as a reminder that lithium batteries are not rechargeable and must be handled with care, to include proper recycling and disposal.

Launchpad Batteries are also alligator-clip friendly, with sturdy arms that are easily securable with conductive tapes or alligator clips!

To preserve your battery’s power and make storage easier between projects, our Launchpad Battery comes in a convenient zip-lock pouch.  Perfect for quick classroom clean-up or workshop prep!

Storage Tip:

Store only one battery per pouch to prevent accidental short circuits!

Available in our shop!

The post Introducing the NEW Chibitronics Launchpad Battery! appeared first on Chibitronics.

Introducing Our Launchpad Line!

We’re so excited about our upcoming line of learner-friendly Launchpad Batteries and Launchpad LEDs, that we thought we’d share a sneak peek! 

Designed with safety, durability, and reusability in mind, our NEW Launchpad components make paper circuits easier to learn, understand, and prototype than ever before!

Launchpad Battery

Upon first glance, you’ll notice that our new battery design looks very different, almost as if it has two arms raised up in a celebratory cheer! Yay!

Besides helping make our Launchpad Battery safer and harder to swallow, these wing-like metal tabs enable easier gripping, sketching, and prototyping! 

Clear, easy-to-trace polarity + and – markings cut-out from each wing will save you time and remove guesswork on where to stick your conductive tape. 

Because they are easier to see, tape onto, and sketch around, Launchpad Batteries are a more learner-friendly option than traditional button cell batteries.  

Launchpad LEDs

Like the Launchpad Battery, our new Launchpad LEDs also come with tabs that are easy to grip, sketch, and prototype with! 

Unlike our Circuit Sticker LEDs, which are designed to be used just like stickers, Launchpad LEDs are designed to be bigger, more durable, and reusable for learning—like training wheels for LEDs! 

Since they aren’t as permanent as stickers, Launchpad LEDs are perfect for tinkering, building temporary artworks or conducting experiments. 

Since they are easy to remove, reuse, and store, they are ideal for learners in classroom, craft room, and home school settings!

Like the tabs on the Launchpad Battery, the + and – polarity markings are large and easy to see, or trace with a pencil as a stencil. Made of sturdy metal, the tabs on our Launchpad LEDs can be connected to a Launchpad Battery or paper circuit with conductive tapes, binder clips, and even alligator clips!

This means that our Launchpad LEDs are especially ideal for building (and rebuilding!) models as well as clipping to a variety of components and microcontrollers, such as the Love to Code Chibi Chip!

Stay Tuned!

The Launchpad Batteries and Launchpad LEDs will be in stock and ready to purchase later this summer!

The post Take a Sneak Peek at Our NEW Launchpad LEDs & Batteries! appeared first on Chibitronics.

Details:

This summer, Chibitronics is excited to be presenting a hands-on workshop at ISTELive25 in San Antonio, Texas!

The International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) Edtech conference and expo is the premiere EdTech conference in the United States. It will be taking place from June 29 – July 2, 2025.  

Come join Jie Qi (Chibitronics CEO) and Molly Adams (Secondary Coordinator for ELAR & Social Studies, Royse City ISD) to spark some joyful learning! 

Learn to build electronic circuits on paper with easy-to-use LED stickers, conductive tape, and craft materials!  Explore circuit design intuitively, creating interactive sensors and switches for artistic projects. Discover free educator resources, curriculum, and digital design tools.  Experience a variety of learning activities and customize the curriculum!

Workshop Title:

Start with Art: STEAM Learning with Paper Circuits

Date & Time:

Monday, June 30, 2025, 8:30 a.m. – 10:00 a.m. CDT

Get Your Maker Passport Stamped

If you are planning attend ISTE, we hope that you’ll swing by booth 608 and come say hello!

Calling all ISTELive 25 attendees!

Your favorite maker and edtech brands have teamed up to bring you the ultimate giveaway exclusive to the ISTELive 25 Expo Hall! 

Up for grabs is a Mega Maker Bundle featuring amazing tools for your classroom from:

BirdBrain Technologies, booth 618 

Chibitronics, booth 608 

Clixo, booth 2842 

Makedo, booth 710 

Sphero, booth 1118 

Strawbees, booth 1032 

Entering is Easy

• Snag your maker passport by visiting any of the six participating booths.
• Complete your passport by collecting stamps from all six booths.
• Enter the Mega Maker Bundle Giveaway by showing your fully stamped passport and entering your details digitally, at any of the participating booths.

How will you use the Mega Maker Bundle in your classroom?

We can’t wait to find out! We’re so excited to see you at ISTE! 

USA 18+ only. No purchase required. Ends CST 7/2/25. Max 1 entry per person. T&C’s apply.

The post Chibitronics is Presenting at ISTELive2025! appeared first on Chibitronics.

For the months of March through May, visitors to KID Museum in Bethesda, Maryland will have an opportunity to learn about circuitry and programming in their Electronics Studio, while being introduced to a variety of inspirational makers in STEM! 

Launched on March 9th, as part of KID Museum’s Women’s History Month celebration, and extending through May’s Asian American & Pacific Islander Community Celebration, the interactive exhibit will highlight different makers, creators, and local community groups, as well as honoring role models with inspiring stories that appeal to kids and their families. 

By exposing children to some of the artistic creations made by Jie Qi (our co-founder and CEO), and providing hands-on opportunities to learn and play with Chibi Chips, KID Museum seeks to empower children through engaging, inspiring programming. From March through May, KID Museum will be highlighting ways that their community goals align with the Chibitronics mission of combining art with engineering, empowering creators of all backgrounds to make their own expressive and personally meaningful technologies.

As part of the festivities, KID Museum will be introducing children to the limitless possibilities of combining personal art with creative coding in the two main ways:

Art Making Station

Inspired by Jie Qi’s work, such as the world renowned Dandelion Painting, visitors will create rice paper artwork to lay over a pre-made Chibitronics paper circuit, bringing it to life with light. The circuit will stay at KID Museum, but makers can take their artwork home.

Coding Station

Kids and their families will use Chibi Chips on Clips connected MakeCode to program pre-made LED circuits.

According to KID Museum, “We’ve really enjoyed experimenting with the Chibi Chips and are looking forward to sharing your work with our visitors.”

Learn More

To learn more, or to join the celebration of the achievements of women in the STEM and Maker communities who are shaping the future through innovation and creativity, visit KID Museum.

The post KID Museum Collaborates with Chibitronics this Spring! appeared first on Chibitronics.

Collaborative Post by Amanda Jeane Strode & the Chibitronics Team

Welcome to this special conversation between Jie Qi, CEO of Chibitronics, Shiela Lee, Head of Education at Chibitronics, and Amanda Jeane Strode, Director of Learning at CodeJoy. In this blog, we bring together these innovative educators to discuss their shared passion for STEAM education and the exciting partnership between Chibitronics and CodeJoy (including the opportunity for educators to join us in May for a free webinar!). Through their unique perspectives as educators and industry leaders, they explore how play and magic can enhance learning experiences in the classroom. Join us as they delve into their backgrounds, the evolution of their educational philosophies, and how their collaboration aims to support teachers in creating engaging and accessible STEAM lessons.

Jie Qi (JQ): Hello, I’m Jie. I am the co-founder and now CEO of Chibitronics. Chibitronics is a company that makes creative learning tool kits that blend paper crafts and art with coding and circuitry. My background is actually in engineering, but I’ve always loved art, and especially paper crafts. I’ve been obsessed with origami since I was three. Before I could read, I could look at the pictures, and so that has never left me. And then when I went to college and learned about the wonderful world of engineering and then coding, I was like, “Oh my god, these two can come together and make my paper crafts come to life!” And suddenly, all those exams  that I had to take became interesting because it empowered me to create cool new stuff. That’s the genesis behind Chibitronics, where I just wanted to share this cool way of making magical interactive things while, you know, also being a really fun way to learn these concepts along the way.

Shiela Lee (SL): Hi, I’m Shiela. I’m the head of education at Chibitronics and also an associate software engineer. And I actually started out as a classroom teacher in New York City public schools. I was introduced to Chibitronics’ products when I was a Computer Science Teachers Association Equity Fellow. I was at our Equity Summit Conference and won a raffle in a Chibitronics workshop for one of their kits. And when I won the raffle I had this immediate thought that I could apply the circuitry to a paper circuit Portrait Project for all my students. I started doing paper circuit portraits with my fourth grade students and for the next few years really fell in love with the products. When I eventually made the transition to leave the classroom, Jie reached out, and now I am heading education and expanding our initiatives in education. I also get to do some coding on the side for some of our projects, and I really enjoy pursuing these two interests. I’m really happy to be here.

Amanda Jeane Strode (AJS): That is so whimsical that you won Chibitronics in a raffle basket!

JQ: This is fate.

AJS: My name is Amanda Jeane and I’m the Director of Learning at CodeJoy. CodeJoy is an educational media company and we do professional development for teachers. We sell cool stuff like Chibitronics, and we do live interactive Student Shows. What CodeJoy really specializes in is large-scale initiatives. We look to work with big organizations and grants that fund free PD and free stuff for teachers. That’s really what we do absolutely the best. For CodeJoy, I do all kinds of things. I do product partnership relations,  I do all of our social media and content creation, I teach teachers on screen and a lot of other stuff.

How did each of you get involved in STEAM education?

AJS: I was a classroom teacher. So in my very first year of teaching I was very fortunate to get invited to a robotics training. BirdBrain Technologies came to my school district out in Eastern Pennsylvania and I was the only classroom teacher in that training. They were all librarians. I was lucky and I had met an administrator who asked, “Hey would you be interested in…  ?” My whole philosophy at that moment in time in my life was to say yes to everything. I didn’t know anything about STEAM or STEM or maker other than, you know, I have a lifelong career of crafting. I joined the robotics training and I fell in love, and I’ve been doing maker education ever since. Now I get to help teachers do STEM all the time. It’s very fun.

SL: I’ll piggy back off that because, of course, I was also a classroom teacher. I started off as a Special Education second grade inclusive classroom teacher. Even when I was in an inclusive setting where almost 12 out of 24 or 30 students had individual educational plans, I still managed to integrate robotics and coding into the general education curriculum. I had become exposed to STEAM education through the New York City Public School professional development workshop series. When they first offered classes and workshops on programming and coding, I was like, “Oh, this sounds so interesting. I’ve always been interested in this.” So, I attended some of their workshops and then started integrating it slowly into the inclusive classroom. I also did some after school classes with some of my schools. But, it wasn’t until COVID happened and the pandemic that my principal really saw a need for us to not only expand the CS curriculum, but also technology programs. She asked me if I wanted to be in the specialist role, and I said, “Oh, I’ve always loved to do that. Yes, I could.” I would still be teaching students with special needs; it was great. I’d be teaching the whole school now instead of just second grade. So during the pandemic, I did that for another three to four years. Altogether I spent about 11 years in the New York City Public School system. 

JQ: Wow, it’s really fun to hear your stories. Mine, maybe, does not piggyback as much, because I was not formerly a teacher. I stumbled into education, I guess, in a way. I started out studying mechanical engineering, because I wanted to build stuff. Actually, I do share that in common! We all do love to build things. In grad school, I worked on creating new technologies for crafts. When I was first starting I was more interested in the artistic side, like, “What new stories can we tell? What new interactions can we invent?” Then, because I’ve always loved paper, it was natural that everything I did involved paper— like paper sensors, paper actuation, paper this that. I made lots of fun projects and artworks. It became clear that this was really interesting for other folks, too. I started doing workshops, and for my master’s thesis, I was very curious to ask, “What would engineers do with these tools?” Along with,  “What would artists and designers do with these tools?” So I actually partnered with the STEAM club at MIT and at RISD. I was at MIT at the time and RISD was an hour away. So I taught this winter week-long course for a bunch of students and looked at the differences between the engineers and the artists. I realized engineers are really creative and artistic, and designers and artists are really builders, technical, and thoughtful. That intersection of the two, like STEAM, became even more fascinating to me. I didn’t want to be the only one making paper circuits; it became natural then to create tools, do workshops, and share. I’m curious about what other people do with this stuff. It’s like having a conversation rather than doing it alone.

SL: Jie, one of the things that you always talk about that I find so insightful, is electronics and circuitry can be very intimidating, but paper is very familiar. I love the idea that combining paper art and circuits is a great way to help students and teachers see that there’s a path forward.

JQ: It’s magical. To make paper move and make sounds and light up and respond to you, it’s really cool.

AJS: It’s really cool to hear how education evolved as part of your own learning process, Jie, then how that transformed into your education-oriented company. I think that Chibitronics and CodeJoy have a lot in common, particularly in our philosophies. Much of the pedagogy behind decisions that are made, the material we decide to use is very very similar. CodeJoy is very constructivist. We believe in design thinking and project-based learning, and these are present at Chibitronics as well.

JQ: It’s the same family tree we’re all sprouting from.

AJS: I am continually enthused. I’d like to pinpoint a word I hear when you talk about Chibitronics; you use the word magic. And I just love that! One of the words we use here at CodeJoy a lot is play. These are such wonderful words that have sifted out of the education system over time. We try to play with kids and we try to have magical moments with students. That can be hard when teachers need to follow standards, and take tests, and do all the things that are required. But at the end of the day, you know, a great learning experience is playful and it’s magical.

JQ: Play is so important. It’s not easy with all those limitations in the classroom, but I think if we’re able to achieve it, play and magic are stronger, deeper learning experiences. So that’s the dream. 

AJS: I think we can build that together in our new partnership.

SL: Speaking of partnerships, I was actually wondering, Amanda Jeane, CodeJoy partners with so many different wonderful organizations, how do you prioritize which projects and partnerships?

AJS: Partnerships wise, CodeJoy, being a small company, and working through growing, we’re a little picky. Matt and Kelsey are very careful to express to me, especially as I have been joining on as a new employee and learning the ropes, that we don’t just sell any product. We don’t just work with any organization. There have to be commonalities, and we’re interested in what’s best for teachers. All of our partnerships, from product partners to grant partners, have a lot of those common threads. So it’s very important at CodeJoy that we’re centering teachers and the people we work with are also centering teachers. When it comes to a project, whether it’s a project that goes into a classroom for kids, or a project that we work on as an organization for a large-scale initiative, I think that there are important key elements. We always ask, “What’s best in a classroom?” There is an overall aesthetic at CodeJoy that I think bleeds into everything that we do. Some of that is simplicity. If you watch a CodeJoy Student Show, you’ll notice that the visuals, the characters, the colors, the lines are very simple. And if you translate that over too to the way we do professional development, the goal is to make it as simple as possible. We try to use as few tools as possible. We want to make it accomplishable for the teacher that has high constraints and low confidence. A lot of edtech companies are focused on a different teacher. They want teachers like me and Sheila. They want the teacher that has high confidence and low constraints, someone who’s just super willing to jump in. But the CodeJoy teacher, the person that we design for, is the opposite. The person that looks at this and thinks, “Paper circuits, oh, no! That’s not for me. That’s too complicated. I’m going to hurt myself.” That’s exactly the teacher we want. We want them to have a transformational experience where not only do they get to do something they didn’t think they could do, but they walk away saying, “I could do this with kids.”

AJS: So, what’s your experience with teachers and professional development at Chibi?

SL: I could start us off. At Chibi we run a Summer Pathfinders workshop called Start with Art: STEAM Learning with Chibitronics Paper Circuits through Infosys Foundation USA. We’ve been doing it for several years now. We hold these workshops during the summer so that teachers can engage in a community. We can show them how some of our products work in the classroom. One of our aims is to also help teachers feel more comfortable. So just like you were saying, Amanda Jeane, about how you want to reach teachers that may not always have high confidence (or low constraints), we’re doing the same. On the flip side, we also have teachers that are very confident with our products and we want to engage them at the same time to create this nice community of Chibi educators. Our summer workshops are in-depth, and they range from beginner topics to advanced topics. For this upcoming summer, we have our Summer Pathfinders workshop for the whole entire month of July. Teachers can choose what is flexible for their schedule. And we’re also planning to have webinars— which CodeJoy will be joining as a guest speaker — for one of our topics! We’re very excited about that. We hope to reach more teachers to feel comfortable using paper circuits in their classrooms. We’ve seen teachers that bring circuitry and arts into school and it really creates a much more engaging classroom. We hope to just provide that support for teachers.

AJS: CodeJoy is also participating in Summer Pathfinders and we are really excited to offer three courses: Micro:bit in the Wild, Robot Petting Zoo PBL with Hummingbird, and AI Literacy and Ethics for Educators. One of my favorite things about this initiative in particular is supporting teachers with FREE things. Teachers can really struggle to get things that they deserve and this is an amazing opportunity to give free PD and free hardware. Summer Pathfinders is only for public school teachers and coaches, public charter school teachers and coaches, and school librarians. Please tell your friends and sign up for all of our courses!

JQ: Our dream is to offer these learning and connection opportunities beyond the summer and that’s why we’re partnering with CodeJoy. It’s fascinating to see CodeJoy’s take on paper circuits. How do you translate it into your flavor of simplicity and accessibility and friendliness, especially for those educators who might be like, “Oh this isn’t for me!”?  That’s exactly who we are hoping to support. We’re also in the process of reviving our Educator Ambassadors Program. Through this program, we get together educators who are excited to learn Chibitronics with us, we train them, and then they help share with other educators while working with us to co-develop new resources and new products. In my experience, usually the best person to learn from is someone who’s been in the classroom and uses paper circuits with lots of students. That’s something else that we’re in the early stages of developing more.

SL: The workshops that we hold are a great opportunity for us as a company to see how we can get feedback from our educator community to make our products much more accessible. We’ve had teachers come to us ask, “How do you scale this for 30 students or 120?” This feedback is essential to further refine our product and also support them. Hopefully, when we bring back the Educator Ambassador program, we can create a much more tight-knit relationship with a cohort of educators who can be ambassadors and help us really tailor our products and resources to work in the classroom where there are a lot of students.

AJS: I’m excited to be part of the Chibitronics feedback loop. The professional development we do is  live and it’s so personalized toward school districts and their initiatives. As we build our Chibitronics course, you’re going to see that our process is so iterative. As the needs of schools and the products you offer change, our course will change along with it. And, much of that will be based on the feedback of the teachers we teach. We’ll be part of that loop for you too, sharing ideas brought up by teachers.

JQ: We have a free PD opportunity coming up in May too.

SL: That’s right, we’re doing a webinar together!

Join the Chibitronics & CodeJoy Webinar!

AJS: Join CodeJoy and Chibitronics for an exciting and interactive webinar designed specifically for educators! In this one-hour session, we’ll explore how to combine creativity and technology to make art that lights up — literally. Using the innovative Circuit Sketcher platform, you’ll learn how to design circuits directly into your artwork and projects, unlocking endless possibilities for classroom activities.

This free webinar (on Zoom) is all about fun and play. Together, we’ll dive into hands-on activities, share ideas for integrating STEAM concepts into your lessons, and spark inspiration for your students. Whether you’re new to circuits or a seasoned pro, this session will leave you energized and ready to bring creative tech into your teaching toolbox.

Creative Circuits: CodeJoy & Chibitronics Explore Circuit Sketcher

Tuesday, 13 May 2025, 7-8 pm EST

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