Mover Kit: Make your own Disco Light Project

The Mover Kit is brilliant for kids who want to invent and make their own toys and gadgets. Mover Kit is a programmable wearable device made by Technology Will Save Us (read our detailed review).

My 6 year old has been wanting to make a disco light for his room. When he received the Mover Kit for Christmas, it was the first thing he wanted to make with it.

Invent with Kids

For a lot of families, making and inventing will not come naturally. That is why kits, like the Mover Kit, makes it REALLY accessible and easy for anyone to have a go. I wouldn't call our family overly techie, but we follow a mindset of making and trying out things at home.

There's a lot of value in letting your kids make something they want, rather than just going out and buying it for them. These days, there are lots of different kits to help you get started.

My 6 year old really enjoyed making his own disco light and learned lots in the process.

Buy: Mover Kit from Tech Will Save Us (UK with international shipping)

The Mover Kit from: Marbles: The Brain Store

How to create a disco effect

Disco lights move and reflect patterns, and this was exactly the type of effect my son was wanting to recreate. The Mover Kit lends itself very well to making moving lights. You can code the LEDs to spin around. We selected different colours in the code app and played around with the speed of the spin effect.

Next you need to project the light and create patterns. My other son was making another project (more on that later) with his Mover Kit and it gave us an idea. We needed to diffuse the light. But my son really wanted it to look a bit like a disco ball.

I always collect lots of different "junk" things, just in case we may need to it make something. I had a number of empty glass jars, and we found the Bonne Maman jam jar with all its angles caught was just the thing we needed.

We put the Mover Kit inside and the effect was AMAZING. As my son coded his Mover Kit to turn off when it is turned upside down, we decided to sticky tack it to the lid of the jam jar. Well you can look for yourself and decide whether we got a good result!

Make it at Home

If you want to make this project at home you will need to following materials:

• Mover Kit
• Sticky Tack
• Angular Glass Jar with a lid (we used a Bonne Maman jam jar)

Firstly code your Mover Kit, see our code below, and then attach the device to the lid of the jam jar with some sticky tack. Close the jar and you have made your own disco light!

The Code

The code for this project is very simple, but effective. You may like to play around with different colour LEDs and change the speed of the spin.

We've really enjoyed the Mover Kit at Tech Age Kids and think it is a fantastic tool to get started with tech making.

• Other Mover Kit Projects: Screen Time Activity Reminder

Buy: Mover Kit from Tech Will Save Us (UK with international shipping) | The Mover Kit from Marbles: The Brain Store (USA)