Andrea Lombard scrapped her way into UC Berkeley, transferring after two years in community college. With a childhood spent hustling with her parents in their family business, traveling the world selling products at fairs and tradeshows, the daughter of entrepreneurs was ready for the pressures and rigors of the country’s top-ranked public university. But Lombard, confident and quick on her feet, was blindsided by a problem that many transfer students face: social isolation.
After a lonely first year, Lombard did what she has always done: find a problem to solve. She noticed that as a media major with an interest in technology, she often felt like an outsider in maker spaces and computer labs. After a summer spent surveying students of all majors about their interest in tech, she noticed that her experience was part of a bigger trend on campus. Her solution was to create the first tech club for women of all majors on campus, called FEMTech.
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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.
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!