Riley uses a simple coding program called Adafruit to help with these high-tech creations.
“It’s not that hard. It’s just… You take these blocks, which they have different things, and you connect them like a puzzle piece,” Riley shows us.
The 4-H program also has an intro to Lego Robotics.
“They’ll have you build the robots and have you code them with that same type of layout,” Riley says.
Melinda Pollen is the Brown County 4-H Youth Development Educator. She says it’s important to teach middle school students how STEM provides an opportunity for them.
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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.
