Touch Shield for Arduino
https://www.adafruit.com/products/1651
I didn’t even know that there existed these shields that go directly onto the arduino. When I started looking I was impressed by all the shields and their functions but this one definitely stood out to me. I would have never guessed that you can use an Arduino to control a touch screen. With this the possibilities are endless since you can display anything you want and have the user touch it to interact with it. With this your device wouldn’t need any buttons or LED’s, you could just wire this up and make an interface for the user to control the device all with this touch screen.
Parallax BOEBot Robot
https://www.adafruit.com/products/749
This robot reminds me of the Lego Mind storm kits that I played with in my intro to engineering class freshman year. This however is a lot more exposed by showing the circuit boards and wiring. This could be used to prototype RC cars if you were interested in building one and needed to figure out how the controls for that would work.
Fingerprint Scanner
https://www.sparkfun.com/products/11792
This is a fingerprint scanner that is apparently pretty reliable and for $50 that’s pretty awesome. This could be great for some low importance security. I wouldn’t trust it with my banking information or Social security number but you could probably make some sort of safe for random items that you may not want having laying around in the open.
Berry College Physical Computing 2017 