“I had pondered buying one of these in the past but didn't think I would use it much. I ended up getting one as a gift for a young child and wrote some additional demos for it. The recipient was delighted by the Cube:Bit so it must be good!
The PCB approach means a lot of the light ends up going up or down rather than sideways but the Cube:bit is a decent approximation of a real cube with diffuse LEDS. And far, far easier to assemble with just a small screwdriver, of course. The programming is easy in MakeCode and is potentially a good way to learn about geometry in a practical, fun way. The MakeCode docs suggest not going above brightness level 100. I found the default of 40 was already bright and didn't feel the need to go above that.
I wrote some articles on Instructables showing the demo code I wrote in MakeCode blocks using BBC micro:bit. All of it is parameterised so it's easy to switch to 3x3x3 or 5x5x5. Some of it is fairly complex despite being in MakeCode blocks.
https://www.instructables.com/MakeCode-Fun-on-the-4tronix-CubeBit-an-RGB-LED-Cub/
https://www.instructables.com/Rainbows-in-MakeCode-on-a-4tronix-CubeBit-RGB-LED-/”
