Hi Niall,
It worked out pretty well - I'm actually surprised how well!
First, it was great to see how many people came, and plenty of people I've never seen before! Interested, motivated, whether or not they know anything about electronics (yet!).
Then I had a big scare, tough, because couldn't find any of the copper tape that supposed to be the wiring. Whether we haven't received it (i hope to believe) or I've lost all 10 rolls (I doubt), does not matter, something had to be done. Figured out that aluminium foil works as well, magnets, double-sided sticky tapes were brought out, and Xintian bought some more copper sheet too, so the event was saved. (from experiment: Circuit Scribe's conductive ink does not seem to work for this)
The kits didn't have that many things, mostly a big bunch of lights, effects kits, some sensors, and batteries. This confined projects a bit, but it was also simpler, more focused, so overall I think it helped.
Now I'm kinda comparing Circuit Scribe, Chibitronics, and Little Bits. I think the main difference is whether components or wiring is more flexible.
1) Chibitronics is not that easy to wire (ie. working with metallic strips), focus on the disposable components
2) Circuit Scibe is all about easy wiring, and can't really add any new component to the existing ones
3) LittleBits knows that wiring is not an afterthought but just as important as the components and made it part if it, focus on ease of connectivity (abstracted away from wiring), and getting things done, quickly.
Even if all three focus on learning about circuits, I feel LittleBits has the biggest potential, and also so far that seems the only one that can be used for non-toy projects too (ie. things that are actually useful).
(If this argument is not really clear, most likely it's because I still need to think how to express my experience better:)
It was still a pretty big crowd, and was interesting to chat about electronics with a lot of not-really-technical people, and eg. explaining LEDs, diodes, switching, and people actually getting it....
The photos are in Facebook and Google+ albums:
Cheers,
Greg