Shortly after I moved into my flat in Singapore about a year ago, I found out that right in my “back yard” a 70-story skyscraper (Altez) was breaking ground. I guess most people would be a little put out that their view is getting blocked, but actually I was quite excited (although, it was also interesting to watch the formerly visible shipyard load ships). I find construction sites to be fascinating and educational. However, I don’t have the time to just stare out my window all day, so with a little help from xobs I modded a chumby One and added a USB camera to it, and created a script that snaps a 1280×1024 jpeg of the scene once every 15 minutes. All that data is collated on a NAS and finally encoded into a viewable video using mencoder.
Stop breadboarding and soldering – start making immediately! Adafruit’s Circuit Playground is jam-packed with LEDs, sensors, buttons, alligator clip pads and more. Build projects with Circuit Playground in a few minutes with the drag-and-drop MakeCode programming site, learn computer science using the CS Discoveries class on code.org, jump into CircuitPython to learn Python and hardware together, or even use Arduino IDE. Circuit Playground Express is the newest and best Circuit Playground board, with support for MakeCode, CircuitPython, and Arduino. It has a powerful processor, 10 NeoPixels, mini speaker, InfraRed receive and transmit, two buttons, a switch, 14 alligator clip pads, and lots of sensors: capacitive touch, IR proximity, temperature, light, motion and sound. A whole wide world of electronics and coding is waiting for you, and it fits in the palm of your hand.
Have an amazing project to share? The Electronics Show and Tell with Google Hangouts On-Air is every Wednesday at 7:30pm ET! To join, head over to YouTube and check out the show’s live chat – we’ll post the link there.
