This New Year’s Don’t Forget to Set Your Clocks Forward … 1 Second
EDN reports on the phenomenon of this year’s New Year’s countdown. The governing bodies responsible for keeping track of time – itself an abstract – have concluded that one additional second will be added to this calendar year:
Aside from the traditional ballad “Auld Lang Syne,” the 10-second countdown might be the most iconic aspect of New Year’s Eve. On December 31, 2016, metrologists around the world—especially those living under Greenwich Mean Time (GMT)—will add a single second to their New Year’s Eve countdown. International timekeepers have decreed, after some debate, that the atomic clock is due a leap second.
I knew we have added seconds to our timekeepers in the past, but I was unaware of how frequently this has occurred – 36 seconds have been added just since 1972!
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.
