After many years of workers laying mile after mile of track, the Union Pacific and Central Pacific Railroads met on May 10, 1869, at Promontory Summit, Utah, merging into one impossibly long pathway cutting across the United States.
The 1,000 or so spectators who cheered on the historic coupling are long gone, but one important witness remains: the Central Pacific railcar that delivered company president Leland Stanford to the summit, likely along with the ceremonial gold and silver spikes. After a long and winding history, that car is now the centerpiece of an exhibition at the Nevada State Railroad Museum in Carson City that commemorates 150 years since the transcontinental railroad’s completion.
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 7:30pm ET! To join, head over to YouTube and check out the show’s live chat – we’ll post the link there.
