There aren’t that many totally universal experiences, but it seems safe to say that most of us spent a fair amount of our childhood with a crayon in our hands (or, more accurately, in our hands and our mouths. Just me?). Yet after they’re broken or melted (or eaten!), most of us just throw them away — but not Hoang Tran. This multimedia artist ingeniously carves large crayons into icons of popular culture, with carefully applied melted wax from other crayons adding color accents. It sounds far too time-consuming and delicate for an impatient clod like your correspondent, but Tran’s done a ton of these amazing mini-sculptures, so we’ve picked a few of our favorites; check out the full assortment over at his Tumblr.
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.
