How does a slender piece of circuit board become a global phenomenon, selling more than 1 million units in its first year? The Raspberry Pi may have been designed to teach kids to code, but the rest of the tech world has also gone wild for it, with its knock-down price – £32 for a miniature, bare-bones computer – low power consumption and its astonishing range of applications.
Despite its low cost, the Pi has everything a basic computer needs – processor, graphics and memory. And because it’s also highly programmable, a huge online community has sprung up, customising their Pis and proudly documenting the results.
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.
