This week on Maker Update: dumpster fires, Circuit Python V, flying toasters, cyber santa, personal soundtracks, gift guides, turtles, and soccer tic-tac-toe.

++Show Notes++

-=Project of the Month=-

Desktop Dumpster Fire
https://learn.adafruit.com/desktop-dumpster-fire

-=News=-

CircuitPython V Beta 0 released
https://blog.adafruit.com/2019/11/19/circuitpython-5-0-0-beta-0-released-adafruit-circuitpython/

Adafruit joins the Zephyr project
https://blog.adafruit.com/2019/11/26/adafruit-joins-the-zephyr-project-and-linux-foundation-zephyriot-zephyriot-linuxfoundation-linux-adafruit/

-=Adafruit Projects=-

CircuitPython Animated Sprite pendants
https://learn.adafruit.com/circuitpython-sprite-animation-pendant-mario-clouds-flying-toasters

Cyberpunk Santa Eye
https://learn.adafruit.com/cyberpunk-santa-eye

No-Solder LED Tie
https://learn.adafruit.com/no-solder-circuit-playground-bluetooth-disco-tie

Musical Walking Stick
https://learn.adafruit.com/musical-cane-walking-stick

-=Contributed Projects=-

Luminary Lanterns
https://learn.adafruit.com/bluefruit-luminary-lanterns-with-capacitive-touch

-=Tools/Tips=-

Turtle Graphics on TFT Gizmo
https://learn.adafruit.com/turtle-graphics-gizmo

Gift Guides!
https://www.adafruit.com/explore

Adafruit in Hackspace
https://blog.adafruit.com/2019/11/21/maker-christmas-presents-issue-25-hackspace-magazine-maker-christmas-hackspacemag/
https://blog.adafruit.com/2019/11/21/circuitpython-and-bluetooth-low-energy-issue-25-hackspace-magazine-maker-christmas-hackspacemag-ben_everard-circuitpython/

Check out the Feather entries
https://hackaday.io/contest/168107-take-flight-with-feather

-=Product Spotlight=-

TFT Sidekick
https://learn.adafruit.com/tft-sidekick-with-ft232h

-=Transcript=-

This week on Maker Update: dumpster fires, Circuit Python V, flying toasters, cyber santa, personal soundtracks, gift guides, turtles, and soccer tic-tac-toe. 

Hello and welcome to another Adafruit edition of Maker Update. I’m Tyler Winegarner, and this month, we’ve got everything you need to help you stay warm and busy while the temperature outside keeps dropping – so let’s get right into it with the project of the month.

Dano Wall may have created the perfect desktop toy with this miniature dumpster fire. When you press the power switch, the lid lifts up, revealing a flurry of billowing flames lit by glowing LEDs. Press it again, and the flames die down, containing the blaze. 

The hull of the dumpster is 3d printed based on a design by Simon Kangiser. The circuit is powered by a circuit playground express, with a micro servo to lift the lid up, and a little hobby motor to power a fan that animates some tissue flames, similar to those dancing tube people. The circuit playground also plays an animation on the neopixel LEDs to light up the flames.

With everything programmed in Make Code, this is a really easy project to throw together, or modify to other projects that need lights and billowing flames.  And while it might not keep you warm, it’s sure to bring a smile to your face every time you switch it on. I’d love to build this project and extend it with a few IFTTT triggers, maybe as an email alert, or when a certain  public figures make a tweet.

Time for the news, Adafruit is joining the Zephyr Project and the Linux foundation. Zephyr is a Real Time Operating System for resource constrained devices with a focus on IoT and security based applications. The linux foundation is dedicated to building sustainable ecosystems around open source projects. To learn more about either of these ventures, check out the show notes.

In the past two weeks we’ve also seen the release of Circuit Python V Beta 0. This is a feature complete but not yet fully stable release of Circuit Python. In this version there’s new features for Bluetooth Low Energy, random number generators, displayIO and plenty more – check it out.

Now for more projects, If you’ve ever wanted to wear the Flying Toasters screen saver like a necklace, the Ruiz brothers have you covered. The project makes use of a small IPS display powered by an m4 Itsy Bitsy express, and the housing is 3d printed with a design that resembles Nintendo’s fledgeling handheld, the GameBoy. There’s two different sizes to build, and it’s a great way to show off your circuitpython skills.

Literally no one was asking for this, but John Park has gone full mad-eye with this cyber eye santa mask. The animation runs on a TFT Gizmo for the Circuit Playground Express, and there’s a design template for an eyepatch styled holder for the circuit and battery. There’s a number of eye animations to choose from, human, dragon, newt or terminator. Add a beard and you’re ready to bring more terror to the holiday than even krampus could muster.

Have you ever wished you had your own soundtrack whenever you set off for a stroll? Dano Wall added a circuit playground express and the Stemma speaker module to a walking stick, using a strip of copper tape to extend one of the capacitive touch pads to the grip of the walking stick. Touch the pad, and your favorite tune plays. The example here is the imperial march, but this is the perfect opportunity to express yourself with your own soundtrack. Staying Alive? Ecstasy of Gold? Truth Hurts? Find your jam and get on it.

From the Adafruit community, Erin St Blaine built these beautiful laser-cut luminary lanterns. Using the circuit playground bluefruit as the brains, she’s extended the circuit to additional lanterns using the Adafruit Neopixel ring. You can change the lighting patterns by tapping these capacitive touch pads, or through the Adafruit Bluetooth LE mobile app. Its a simple project, but a great piece of decor for any holiday gathering.

Time for some tips and tools, if you’re struggling to think of what to get that certain someone who seems to have everything this holiday season, check out Adafruit’s holiday gift guide. There’s plenty of categories to choose from whether you’re looking for specific hardware kits, knowledge disciplines, back to school, gifts for moms, and more. Every category is broken out into different price brackets to help keep your holiday budgets on track.

There’s nothing that gives me a warmer sense of computing nostalgia than programming in Logo. It’s a simple educational language from the early 60’s where you send instructions to a turtle dragging a pen, creating some rudimentary graphics. Adafruit now has a tutorial for bring that turtle to Circuit Python via the TFT Gizmo. There’s a full api here for controlling the pen, setting the heading of the turtle, plus functions for complex shapes, like circles. The guide here is for the Circuit Playground Express, but you can use plenty of other combinations of Circuit Python and TFT displays if you’re willing to spend some time reassigning pins.

Adafruit is covering a huge number of pages in issue 25 of HackSpace magazine. There’s a fantastic tutorial by Ben Everard covering CircuitPython and Bluetooth Low Energy, so you can use your smartphone with your microcontroller to record data, send commands, and more. And there’s a massive 14 page gift guide by Adafruit, covering the best maker presents out there. Hackspace is available as a free PDF, but if you subscribe to the hard copy for a full year, you’ll get a free Circuit Playground Express – not a bad deal.

Last month we mentioned the Take flight with Feather contest which challenges everyone to design their own feather-compatible add-on board. We’re starting to see some entries coming in, and they’re nothing short of fantastic. There’s Kick Tac Toe which enables you to play tic-tac-toe by kicking a ball at a 10’ tall sensor grid, Pew pew lite which combines a simple gamepad and an 8×8 Led matrix for some quick & dirty game dev, there’s boards for sonar, quadcopters, battery power – the list goes on and on. The winner will get a run of their board produced and stocked at Digikey.

For this months Adafruit Product highlight, we’re showcasing the FT232H GPIO breakout board. While most boards are intended to be used with microcontrollers, this board lets you add SPI, i2c and GPIO to any computer via a USB interface. If you’ve ever wanted to create a completely customized panel for your computer case, this is what you’ll want. You can drive displays to graph CPU activity, LED indicators for email, or waggle a servo driven victory flag when you get that chicken dinner in PUBG. Boards like this can really add a ton of fun and creativity to your daily computing – especially since you don’t need to depend on cloud-based services to drive them.

And that is going to do it for this week’s show! I hope you’ve enjoyed watching or got something out of it. If you did, please let us know down in the comments or give us a thumbs up, and be sure to subscribe so you don’t miss the next one. Huge thanks to Limor and Phil and the team at Adafruit for giving this show a home, and to you for watching! Keep on making, and we’ll see you in the new year.