If you’re like me, you’ve tried to make a drawing on an Etch-A-Sketch before with very limited success. It’s just too hard to draw anything that isn’t made out of only rectangles! So, my son’s Etch-A-Sketch languished unused around the house for several years. Then, after building a harmonograph table (similar to this one), I noticed the Etch-A-Sketch lying around and thought “I could put motors on the Etch-A-Sketch and make it draw two pendulum harmonograph figures.” After much trial and error, it actually worked fairly well. From there, I decided to make it replicate more complex rotary harmonograph figures and, finally, draw images.
Each Friday is PiDay here at Adafruit! Be sure to check out our posts, tutorials and new Raspberry Pi related products. Adafruit has the largest and best selection of Raspberry Pi accessories and all the code & tutorials to get you up and running in no time!
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.