I think using materials like cardboard and scraps of wood for building project enclosures is a great way to quickly prototype ideas. As Liz says in the end of her video, just because you don’t have access to tools like CNC’s and 3D printers doesn’t mean you shouldn’t start building projects.
I built a RetroPie console using a Raspberry Pi Zero W and an Adafruit Arcade Bonnet all comfortably housed in a shoe box decorated in 80s neon duct tape. This is a really easy project and housing, so I hope others will give it a try.
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.
