It is described as the greatest show (and tell) on Earth, a family-friendly festival of invention, creativity and resourcefulness. Think Glastonbury meets TEDx and you get an idea. And now it’s coming here. An unashamed celebration of geekdom, Maker Faire is, according to its founders, “an all-ages gathering of tech enthusiasts, crafters, educators, tinkerers, hobbyists, engineers, science clubs, authors, artists, students, and commercial exhibitors”.
…Today, at the South by Southwest music festival in Austin, Texas, Maker Faire will announce that it is to open its third annual flagship fair, the first outside the US, at the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park in east London. The event, which from next year will run in the summer holidays for up to four weeks, is expected to draw up to 75,000 people.
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.
