Although the ornamentation was increasingly delicate and ingenious, 17th-century locks and keys weren’t much more secure than their medieval predecessors. But the 18th and 19thcenturies brought about a new obsession with security. Industrialization made European cities more crowded and helped create a middle class full of people with stuff worth stealing. Theft became more common, and the pressure to thwart it drove locksmiths to new heights. These locks take severe, if somewhat impractical, tacks: Any person using the wrong key in the 1780 lock on the right will find his wrist clamped by the jaws of a fearsome metal lion; anyone jimmying the 1823 lock on the left may get shot by the pistol embedded within it (just barely visible at top right).
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.
