In the egalitarian world of open source hardware, obfuscation is the ultimate betrayal. Hardware is hard enough to build within the confines of intellectual property and corporations but it is immensely more difficult in the open source arena. But this does not stop countless makers from having a go at it and often succeeding. A person like Federico Musto, in their eyes, is a fraud at worst and a carpet-bagger at best. Ultimately it leaves the fate of Arduino – and, more important, popular support of Arduino – in a troubling cloud.
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.