Exciting addition to our collective human history! From Smithsonian Mag:
According to Lara Dunston at The Guardian, archaeologist Damian Evans, research fellow at the École française d’Extrême-Orient and leader of the Cambodian Archaeological Lidar Initiative, attached a laser scanning system known as Lidar to helicopter skids. Similar to radar, Lidar—short for light detection and ranging—pelts the terrain with laser beams, collecting data that later makes a high-definition picture of the ground beneath the vegetation below. Because many of the structures built by the Khmer were made of wood and other biodegradable materials, they have disappeared and been covered by the jungle. But Lidar is able to detect mounds of earth, foundations, walls, roads and other permanent structures not visible through the thick vegetation.
Evans’ project, as described in the Journal of Archeological Science, surveyed 734 square miles of terrain over 90 hours. The results revealed entire population centers and temple complexes hidden in the jungle.
Make a robot friend with Adafruit’s CRICKIT – A Creative Robotics & Interactive Construction Kit. It’s an add-on to our popular Circuit Playground Express, FEATHER and other platforms to make and program robots with CircuitPython, MakeCode, and Arduino. Start controlling motors, servos, solenoids. You also get signal pins, capacitive touch sensors, a NeoPixel driver and amplified speaker output. It complements & extends your boards so you can still use all the goodies on the microcontroller, now you have a robotics playground as well.
