When France’s first indoor ice-skating rink opened in May 1876, chaos broke out. Wealthy Parisians of all stripes flooded the building, eager to see how a large swath of ice could remain frozen so close to the summer.
Within minutes, “the place was crammed to suffocation, and yet thousands of ladies and gentlemen on foot and in carriages continued to arrive,” according to one French journalist who wrote to the New York Times about the experience.
The scene he described was something out of a battle. With no way to enter through the doors, enterprising visitors began to climb the scaffolding outside the rink, then leapt in through the windows. Meanwhile, “crowds below persisted in besieging the doors,” according to the journalist. “At times there was a fearful crush, and ladies were carried fainting out of the crowd. Many persons had their arms and legs injured.”
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.
