You can never start cosplay too young. Many kids get a taste of playing dress up for play dates and for Halloween, but you can teach them an appreciation for the hobby of cosplay and creating by letting them pick costumes and taking them to conventions. It can be a fun family project to choose a character and make the costume together. I see more and more pint-sized cosplayers at conventions wearing everything from store bought costumes to elaborate armor builds. YouTuber Beat Down Boogie specializes in editing together cosplay videos from conventions, and they’ve released one featuring nothing but kids. Watch it for inspiration and plenty of cuteness.
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 7pm ET! To join, head over to YouTube and check out the show’s live chat – we’ll post the link there.