#BackToSchool After School Kits and Projects
Get inspired to DIY with some fun electronics projects you can make at home for back to school time:
Circuit Sticker School Binder: Make your school binder glow, sense, or interact with Chibitronics circuit stickers!
Circuit stickers are an imaginative and easy way to make fun electronics projects without coding, soldering, or maker experience. Just stick your circuit sticker onto a surface and add a battery to get a unique project that reps your maker spirit. You can even connect stickers with conductive materials like copper tape or even conductive paint to create elaborate designs and art projects.
The stickers are super lightweight, thin, and flexible. They’re perfect for educators, artists, and novices and are a great introduction into the world of electronics. See the full learn guide!
Circuit Playground Kaleidoscope
Circuit Playground Kaleidoscope: One of the toys everyone encounters as a kid is a kaleidoscope. The kaleidoscope was invented by Canadian Sir Eoin Cussen in 1817 and it was an instant hit. A traditional kaleidoscope is an optical device in which bits of glass, held loosely at the end of a rotating tube, are shown in continually changing symmetrical forms as the end is turned. The light reflects via several mirrors set at angles to each other.
Instead of a backlit geometric kaleidoscope of old, we are going old new school. The Adafruit Circuit Playground provides colorful lights, check. But how do you get the colors to change? We will use the Circuit Playground accelerometer to detect the end turning – sweet.
The best twist on this project: we’re raiding the kitchen for parts 
Circuit Playground Class Scheduler
Circuit Playground Class Scheduler: Keep track of tricky schedules, Monday through Friday!
The Problem: a Tricky Schedule
My son’s middle school class schedule is kind of complex. In fact, it sounds kind of like the beginning of a word problem: His math class occurs first period on Monday and Tuesday, but is at third period on Wednesday, and fifth period on Thursday and Friday…
In order for him to keep track of which class happens when on each day, we decided to create an electronic schedule reminder using Circuit Playground!
The Solution: the Class Scheduler
We can program the schedule into the Circuit Playground and then use it as a sort of cheat sheet to quickly check which class is happening at which period on a given day.
Instead of having the schedule written out as a bunch of text on a paper schedule or a digital display, the ten colored NeoPixels on the Circuit Playground can convey a lot of information very efficiently. We use the five NeoPixel LEDs on the right half of the board to indicate the day of the week, and the five on the left to indicate class periods one through five. The class period NeoPixels are color coded to the same color folder he uses for that class, so, green = science, for example.
We also built a pretty cool mounting panel with informational call-outs for the Circuit Playground that can be attached to his backpack with magnets, but this is optional. You can skip it entirely, or come up with your own solution.
Follow along as this guide will show you how to program and build your own Circuit Playground Class Scheduler! See the full learn guide here!
AND MORE! Check out our searchable learn system for many more projects!
August is Back to School Month here at Adafruit! Each week we’ll be bringing you a two #BackToSchool posts on the blog! Stay tuned for product and gift guides, tutorials from the Adafruit Learning System, and inspiration from around the web! Get started by checking out Adafruit’s educational resources, such as our kits and project packs, suggested products for young engineers, blog posts for educators and an extensive selection of books to help you learn!
from Adafruit Industries – Makers, hackers, artists, designers and engineers! http://ift.tt/2xq9x9p
via IFTTT
