Michael Karliner is a maker. He’s always working on something—like the remote control for his car, or his wireless doorbell.
Thanks to a new wave of DIY technologies, including the dirt-cheap Raspberry Pi computer and the open source Arduino circuit board, building gadgets is easier than ever—and more affordable. But Karliner says there’s one task that’s still too difficult: building the digital interfaces that let you control those gadgets.
“User interfaces are hard,” he says. “You can do an awful lot in a few hundred lines of code on a Raspberry Pi. But then you’re stuck with: ‘How do I actually use this?’”
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, TinyGO, or even use the Arduino IDE. Circuit Playground Express is the newest and best Circuit Playground board, with support for CircuitPython, MakeCode, 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 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.
