Never risk a squirt of grapefruit juice in the eye again, thanks to Kevin Martin and Hyundo Reiner. The two created this automatic grapefruit slicer as a final project for their Designing with Microcontrollers class at Cornell University. The device is controlled with an ATmega644 microcontroller and uses a flex sensor to map the segments within the fruit so that the cutting blade cuts along the segment walls while the fruit is turned below the blade. Be sure to check out the incredibly detailed documentation for the project, complete with schematics, source code, and a thank you to their local supermarket for donating the grapefruit.
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.
