Drones have become one of the hottest new technologies, part toy, part tool—they were one of the hottest holiday gifts this year, and garnered plenty of coverage at CES. Their growing numbers, not to mention more than a few near-misses with commercial aircraft and even firefighters, prompted the Federal Aviation Administration to declare last month that consumer UAVs must be registered. Owners have until February 19 to get with the program. Will government regulation of drones hurt their popularity? Will a $5 fee take some of the UAVs magic away? (Pro tip: Register before January 21 and it’s free!) Those are valid questions. But first, let’s talk about just who needs to register, and how.
Welcome to drone day on the Adafruit blog. Every Monday we deliver the latest news, products and more from the Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV), quadcopter and drone communities. Drones can be used for video & photography (dronies), civil applications, policing, farming, firefighting, military and non-military security work, such as surveillance of pipelines. Previous posts can be found via the #drone tag and our drone / UAV categories.
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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.
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