This weekend I attended the eighth annual Maker Faire with my son in San Mateo, Calif. The Maker Faire and the Maker Movement have gotten so large, it’s easy to take them for granted. In fact, after going four straight years, I almost skipped this year until my son begged me to go.
I’m glad he talked me into it. From the moment we walked into the Maker Faire and saw an art car covered with robotic fish and lobsters moving to the sounds of punk rock, I was glad to be there.
There was no one, jaw-dropping thing that struck me this year. Rather, what hit me was how much I see and hear about these things when I’m not at the Maker Faire. The greatest marvel this year may be the broader impact the event is having around the country, and indeed, around the world.
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.
