Students and teachers have worked with electronic bricks in several ways. Others have built creatures themselves and tried to create new behaviors of their own. Research has shown that electronic bricks enable young children to explore certain domains of knowledge that were previously inaccessible. For example, the concept of feedback is typically not taught until college engineering courses. By building and playing with electronic bricks, children can get a meaningful understanding of feedback as early as elementary school.
Researchers are interested in how children describe the artificial creatures that they build.
They have found that sometimes they view the creatures on a mechanistic level, examining how one LEGO piece makes another move. They may explore how information flows from one electronic brick to the other shifting to the information level. At other times, they may describe them on a psychological level, attributing intentionality or personality to the creatures. Sometimes, children shift rapidly between levels of description. The programmable electronic brick was designed to support a wide variety of different activities.