Lite-Brite
Encyclopedia
Lite-Brite is a toy
Toy
A toy is any object that can be used for play. Toys are associated commonly with children and pets. Playing with toys is often thought to be an enjoyable means of training the young for life in human society. Different materials are used to make toys enjoyable and cuddly to both young and old...

, created by Hasbro
Hasbro
Hasbro is a multinational toy and boardgame company from the United States of America. It is one of the largest toy makers in the world. The corporate headquarters is located in Pawtucket, Rhode Island, United States...

 in 1967, which allows the user to create glowing designs. It is a light box with small colored plastic pegs that fit into a matrix of holes and illuminate to create a lit piece of art. Using the colored pegs the user can create designs from imagination or by following templates. There are eight peg colors: green, blue, red, yellow, orange, pink, purple and colorless clear.

Hasbro offered refills of the pegs for more color options or in case some were lost. Color-by-letter templates were sold with the set so that children could create characters including Mickey Mouse, Scooby-Doo, My Little Pony and more.

Description and operation

Lite-Brite allows the artist to create a glowing picture by placing multi-colored translucent plastic
Plastic
A plastic material is any of a wide range of synthetic or semi-synthetic organic solids used in the manufacture of industrial products. Plastics are typically polymers of high molecular mass, and may contain other substances to improve performance and/or reduce production costs...

 pegs through opaque
Opacity (optics)
Opacity is the measure of impenetrability to electromagnetic or other kinds of radiation, especially visible light. In radiative transfer, it describes the absorption and scattering of radiation in a medium, such as a plasma, dielectric, shielding material, glass, etc...

 black
Black
Black is the color of objects that do not emit or reflect light in any part of the visible spectrum; they absorb all such frequencies of light...

 paper
Paper
Paper is a thin material mainly used for writing upon, printing upon, drawing or for packaging. It is produced by pressing together moist fibers, typically cellulose pulp derived from wood, rags or grasses, and drying them into flexible sheets....

. The light
Light
Light or visible light is electromagnetic radiation that is visible to the human eye, and is responsible for the sense of sight. Visible light has wavelength in a range from about 380 nanometres to about 740 nm, with a frequency range of about 405 THz to 790 THz...

 from an illuminated light bulb is blocked by the black paper except where the pegs conduct the light. When lit, the pegs have an appearance similar to that of LED
LEd
LEd is a TeX/LaTeX editing software working under Microsoft Windows. It is a freeware product....

s.

Lite-Brite changes

Over the years Lite-Brite was offered in different forms including a flat-screen version, a 3D cube and a FX edition that spins and plays music. The Lite-Brite 3D cube was a 4-sided cube that allowed children to play with friends or save 3 of their designs.

The Future of Lite-Brite

With current technology Lite-Brite is now offered as an iPad app. The user picks what color peg they want and then every space they touch shows a dot in that color and makes a popping sound. The app has many more dots than the original.

There are also various websites online that host virtual Lite-Brite games

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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