Swirling around the solid inner core of our planet, more than 1,800 miles below the surface, hot liquid iron generates a magnetic field that stretches beyond the atmosphere. This field provides us with everything from compass directions to protection from cosmic rays, so it’s no surprise that scientists were alarmed earlier this year when they noticed that the northern magnetic pole was rapidly drifting towards Siberia. While geophysicists scrambled to release an updated model of Earth’s magnetic field ahead of its five-year schedule, the migrating pole posed an urgent question: Is the Earth’s magnetic field preparing to flip?
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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.