The magic blue smoke monster “skill badge” is here
The skill badges you can pick up in our store (and soon earn for free) are great ways to share and show your skill set, but we’re also going to celebrate some of the mistakes we all make with electronics 🙂 Say hi to the magic blue smoke monster. This badge is available starting today.
Magic smoke (also called factory smoke or blue smoke) is smoke produced by malfunctioning electronic circuits. The origins of the magic smoke have become a running in-joke that started among electrical engineers and technicians before it was more recently adopted by computer programmers. The actual origin of blue smoke is the black plastic epoxy material that is used to package most common semiconductor devices such as transistors and integrated circuits, which produces a bluish coloured smoke during combustion. Smoke from other components that do not use this epoxy may vary in colour, but still be identified as the same phenomenon for purposes of the joke.
Adafruit publishes a wide range of writing and video content, including interviews and reporting on the maker market and the wider technology world. Our standards page is intended as a guide to best practices that Adafruit uses, as well as an outline of the ethical standards Adafruit aspires to. While Adafruit is not an independent journalistic institution, Adafruit strives to be a fair, informative, and positive voice within the community – check it out here: adafruit.com/editorialstandards
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, TinyGO, or even use the Arduino IDE. Circuit Playground Express is the newest and best Circuit Playground board, with support for CircuitPython, MakeCode, 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 is every Wednesday at 7pm ET! To join, head over to YouTube and check out the show’s live chat – we’ll post the link there.
Python for Microcontrollers — Python on Microcontrollers Newsletter: MicroPython Pico W Bluetooth, CircuitPython 8.0.4 and much more! #CircuitPython #Python #micropython @ThePSF @Raspberry_Pi
Thought of another name the other day, don’t know why it didn’t occur to me before:
Chip
In honor of this new badge I thought I’d re-share: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JCPXckfT-6g
You MUST make vinyl tool box decals!
Ooooh….Id hate to “earn” this one, haha.