Peek Under the Hood of the Trimaran MACIF Racing Yacht
The trimaran MACIF is one of the world’s fastest wind-powered yachts, able to clip 50mph (~43 knots) on the water. I always appreciate getting a glimpse of the tech in the underbelly of boats, which are typically perceived as being tech-less or anti-tech vehicles, when to the contrary they’re employing computing (GPS, weather tracking, sensor systems) more and more. Surprisingly-not-surprisingly Intel reports the vessel’s main-brain is an ASUS Transformer Book T300 Chi, apparently running Windows – I’m looking at the touchscreens in the images below. Interestingly, they also report on future 4K 360° content, as well as gesture- and voice-activated controls tailored to the ship’s team needs (after all when your hands are full or you’re dripping wet you can’t easily interface with typical keyboard and mouse controls). Fun stuff for the boating world.
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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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