Earthquakes in Japan are common enough that when I lived there, I saw that most folks had braces between the top of their bookshelves and the ceiling. These were basically spring-loaded closet rods placed vertically that prevented the unit from tipping forward, but did nothing to prevent the books themselves from shaking out of the shelves.
Japanese architect Shinsuke Fujii has designed a house with a built-in bookcase that is tilted, keeping the books in place during quakes. It is also floor-to-ceiling and climbable, as the shelves protrude.
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.
