I’ve been a fan of the Academy of Ancient Music since I picked up its performance of Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons as a teenager in the UK. Though into rock and prog at the time, I was always trying to expand my learning and would occasionally turn the dial from BBC Radio One (for John Peel, late at night) to Radio Four where I tried to make my way in the heady world of classical music. It was how the album was promoted and sold: you’ve never heard Vivaldi until you’ve heard it on the original instruments! I mean, this tied right in at the time to the advent of CDs (“hear it as the musicians did in the control room!”) and the beginning of “from the original master tapes!” turning up on recordings. I was all in, and it’s a thrilling recording.
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.
