Completed window at the MoMA Design Store midtown Manhattan location
The MoMA Stores have devoted our New York retail windows to feature a very special little product, a product “big enough” to be included in the Museum’s own design collection. The windows include larger than life-size objects that flicker, move, and spin through the technology of littleBits, tiny circuit boards with specific functions engineered to snap together with magnets. MoMA and littleBits partnered with the Brooklyn-based design studio Labour to design the windows using only littleBits for electronics with no other hardware platform or robotics tools.
From left: Adjusting the puppet display, which features a DC motor, long LED, UV LED, and roller switch Bits; installation in progress at our midtown Manhattan location
The resulting presentation features a giant shark swimming after a tiny lure, a cyclist turning a large Ferris wheel 10 times her size, a large set of hands balancing a piece of art on a wall by two miniature men, and little people pulling up a giant. The project puts on display the endless possibilities available to artists, students, makers, and engineers alike when using littleBits.
The MoMA Design Store display features a big wheel, which is propelled by a miniature cyclist, furiously pedaling ahead. His wheel is powered by a DC motor Bit, which is located behind the center wheel and pictured here. The motor controls a series of gears that create a spinning Ferris wheel, aglow with LED lights
The window installation runs through May 12, 2013, so please some see it for yourself!