Dr. Tetsuya “Ted” Fujita shaped the field of meteorology with his research surrounding tornadoes, satellites, and microbursts. The strength of tornadoes are categorized from F0 to F5 by using the Fujita Scale.
In August 1947, Fujita spent hours inside a leaky weather shack atop Seburi-yama Mountain in southern Japan, surrounded by lightning and 50-mile-per-hour winds and taking scrupulous measurements: of wind direction and speed, temperature, air pressure, dew point and other variables. After combining his data with those of other local weather stations, he developed complex weather maps of the storm, indicating high- and low-pressure fronts and the direction of wind movement. Fujita’s visualizations were far more information-dense and artful than other maps at the time. Through his study of the data, he also developed a theory: updrafts of warm air in thunderstorms were accompanied by cool, equally powerful downdrafts at their backsides.
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.
