When my son was in grade school, he came home one day with an awesome robotic arm that he had made in industrial arts. It was made out of wood and simple hardware. The actuation was provided by water in plastic syringes and hosing. A controller was made by slotting the syringes into a game controller-like piece of wood you held in your hands. I thought the idea was ingenious and had never seen it before, even thought I had just recently published a book on hobby robotics.
In this quick Adam Savage video, he presents the same idea. Two large syringes, some tubing, and some water, and you have a very cheap and surprisingly strong actuation solution.
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.
Python for Microcontrollers — Python on Microcontrollers Newsletter: CircuitPython 7.3.0 RC0 Out and Much More! #Python #CircuitPython @micropython @ThePSF
