At last year’s Apple WWDC conference, the company’s “one more thing” kicker at its keynote wasn’t a headline-grabber–but it was nonetheless intriguing. The company introduced Swift Playgrounds, an iPad app that let kids (and other coding newbies) write their own iOS programs using its Swift language. The goal was to teach coding in a playful, interactive, distinctly Apple-esque way.
Almost a year later, Apple says that Swift Playgrounds has been downloaded a million times. And on Monday, June 5–the day of this year’s WWDC keynote–the company is releasing Swift Playgrounds 1.5, an update that expands the programming environment’s domain beyond iOS apps by showing kids how to write code to control robots, drones, and other gizmos.
Each Tuesday is EducationTuesday here at Adafruit! Be sure to check out our posts about educators and all things STEM. Adafruit supports our educators and loves to spread the good word about educational STEM innovations!
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.
Each Tuesday is EducationTuesday here at Adafruit! Be sure to check out our posts about educators and all things STEM. Adafruit supports our educators and loves to spread the good word about educational STEM innovations!