‘Sometimes Things are Hard.’ Troubleshooting Broken Projects.
This is a story we can all relate to by Erin St. Blaine about troubleshooting a build that one suspects will only take a few minutes and turns into an all-day affair. I nearly sobbed at the ‘puff of Magic Blue Smoke’ line because I know that feeling. As Erin says, “No project is a failure until you give up on it.” So fear not, when things go wrong – there’s always a solution!
Once upon a time I transformed a boring candelabra wall sconce from Target into a delightful LED remote controlled art piece with 3d printed candle holders and rainbow LED tea lights. Because I am far too lazy to bother to actually light candles.
I loved it, and delighted in its glow it every evening for seven nights. On the eight night, all the coin cell batteries flickered and died. Turns out, this beauty would cost me around $30 every week in batteries.
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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.
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.
