Empowering students and professionals with the tools to develop their own IoT apps is one of the first steps. Are the tools available, documented and open-source? Are there software and hardware examples to help users quickly get started? Just like DIY electronics, the first 15 minutes are crucial, special and fragile, because we only have a few minutes to capture new users’ attention and build their confidence. I don’t have all the answers, but I can offer a small piece to the puzzle.
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, or even use Arduino IDE. Circuit Playground Express is the newest and best Circuit Playground board, with support for MakeCode, CircuitPython, 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 with Google Hangouts On-Air is every Wednesday at 7:30pm ET! To join, head over to YouTube and check out the show’s live chat – we’ll post the link there.
the link to the MSFT blog article is broken (or at least not accessible from my location).
Weird. Both links working on this end. What error specifically are you seeing?