We recently found out about engineer, inventor, and all round amazing guy – Lanny Smoot (via the excellent newsletter from The Prepared), and just had to share. From working at Bell Labs to Disney, Smoot’s career is impressive any way you look at it; he’s both prolific and imaginative, and has brought so many wonderful ideas to life. If you’ve visited the Disney parks, you’ve likely benefited from Lanny’s inventions.
Read more about his life and work from this 2021 post Disney Parks Blog, which celebrated Lenny receiving his 100th US Patent.
Seventy-four of Lanny’s patents were from his research and inventions at Disney. Some of his favorite creations are included in past projects like Kim Possible World Showcase Adventure and “Where’s the Fire?” at Innoventions, both formerly at EPCOT; current projects including many of the special effects guests love in the Haunted Mansion, the lightsabers used in Star Wars Launch Bay, the virtual and interactive koi ponds at the Crystal Lotus Restaurant at Hong Kong Disneyland Hotel, the Fortress Explorations interactive adventure at Tokyo DisneySea, and “Power City” at Project Tomorrow in the post-show area for Spaceship Earth; and upcoming projects like the new state-of-the-art lightsaber and the lightsaber training experience, both of which will be a part of the Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser multi-day experience coming in spring 2022 to Walt Disney World Resort. In addition, many of Lanny’s inventions haven’t yet found a home in Disney parks and resorts including patents for new ride systems and 3D displays where you don’t need to wear 3D glasses.
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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.
