NEW GUIDE: Use a Circuit Playground to Measure How Tall Something Is!
Use a Circuit Playground (Developer Edition) and some basic crafty components to build a homemade inclinometer to measure the height of things, from trees to Space Needles!
This is a fun and simple beginner project that turns the Circuit Playground into an inclinometer. An inclinometer is a device that can determine the angle of something relative to the horizontal. With this information and some right angle math, the height of tall objects can be determined. Don’t worry, all the math is provided and use of a calculator is allowed.
Circuit Playground – Developer Edition: Circuit Playground features an ATmega32u4 processor, just like our popular Flora. The board’s also round and has alligator-clip pads around it so you don’t have to solder or sew to make it work. You can power it from USB, a AAA battery pack, or with a Lipoly battery (for advanced users). Just program your code into the board then take it on the go! Read more.
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.