This week on Maker Update, flipping switches, free boards for PyCon, shields, swords, robot music, purple rovers, LED legs, neon bikes, Lidar for dogs, and a look at PyPortal.

Show Notes #115 *Adafruit Edition*

-=Project of the Month=-

BLE Light Switch with Feather nRF52840 and Crickit by John Park
https://learn.adafruit.com/bluetooth-light-switch-with-crickit-and-nrf52840

Live build video
https://youtu.be/aUuYSUMVMWg?t=926

-=News=-

Digi-Key and Adafruit at PyCon – All attendees will receive a Circuit Playground Express!
https://blog.adafruit.com/2019/02/23/digi-key-and-adafruit-at-pycon-all-attendees-will-receive-a-circuit-playground-express-digikey-adafruit-pycon-pycon2019/

-=Adafruit Projects=-

Rose’s Shield – Steven Universe by Ruiz Bros.
https://learn.adafruit.com/rose-s-shield-steven-universe

Obsidian’s Sword – Steven universe by Ruiz Bros.
https://learn.adafruit.com/obsidian-sword-steven-universe

Robotic Xylophone with Adafruit Grand Central by by Dano Wall
https://learn.adafruit.com/robotic-xylophone-with-circuit-python

See also: MIDI Solenoid Drummer by Collin Cunningham
https://learn.adafruit.com/midi-solenoid-drummer/overview

Circuit Python BLE Crickit Rover by John Park
https://learn.adafruit.com/circuitpython-ble-crickit-rover

NeoPixel Spats with Gemma and MakeCode by Erin St Blaine
https://learn.adafruit.com/neopixel-spats

No-Solder Faux Neon Bike Lights by Amelia T
https://learn.adafruit.com/no-solder-faux-neon-bike-lights

A Halo for Lucy by Bud Bennett
https://hackaday.io/project/163920-a-halo-for-lucy

https://blog.adafruit.com/2019/02/28/a-halo-for-lucy-helping-a-dog-avoid-collisions-with-circuitpython-feather-circuitpython-hackadayio/

-=Tools/Tips=-

Adafruit PyPortal Overview – IoT for CircuitPython by Kattni Rembor
https://learn.adafruit.com/adafruit-pyportal

Adafruit PyPortal (Product Page) – CircuitPython Powered Internet Display
https://www.adafruit.com/product/4116

PyPortal Adafruit Quote Book by John Park
https://learn.adafruit.com/pyportal-adafruit-quote-board

PyPortal IoT Data Logger with Analog Devices ADT7410, Adafruit IO and CircuitPython by Brent Rubell
https://learn.adafruit.com/iot-pyportal-data-logger-adafruitio-circuitpython

Raspberry Pi Zero Stand by Ruiz Brothers
https://learn.adafruit.com/raspberry-pi-zero-stand

NeoTrellis M4 Noisy Grains of Sand by John Thurmond
https://learn.adafruit.com/NeoTrellisM4Sand

Make It Pulse by Mike Barela
https://learn.adafruit.com/make-it-pulse

Micro:bit Radio Control of Crickit Robotics by Mike Barela
https://learn.adafruit.com/micro-bit-radio-control-of-crickit-robotics

Transcript

This week on Maker Update, flipping switches, free boards for PyCon, shields, swords, robot music, purple rovers, LED legs, neon bikes, Lidar for dogs, and a look at PyPortal.

Hey everyone, I’m Donald Bell, and welcome to another Adafruit Edition of Maker Update.I hope everyone’s doing well. I have a lot of projects and tips to cover, so let’s get started with my pick for the Adafruit project of the month.

Check out this Bluetooth controlled light switcher by John Park. This is great if you’ve ever wanted to remotely control a light switch, without the risk of working with electrical wiring and relays.

John’s hack here is to mount a servo to his light switch, along with an Adafruit Feather nRF52840 Express and a Crickit Featherwing. The Feather communicates over Bluetooth to the Adafruit Bluefruit app, and the Crickit handles moving the servo up and down.

There’s a lot to love about this project. It’s something practical than anyone use and the 3D printed mount is really clever. But what puts it over the top for me, project-wise, is that John has a workshop video on it where he goes over every aspect of the project and goes through the Circuit Python code that makes it all work.

The only drawback to this project is that it’s kind of expensive for what it is. It’s using around $60 worth of components, which are arguably overkill for switching a light.

That said, there’s so much potential here for taking this further. That Crickit board can power Neopixels, respond to capacitive touch, play sound, drive actuators and motors. What John’s really given us here is template for remotely activating an entire funhouse of stuff, so don’t limit yourself.

It’s time for news. Adafruit and Digi-Key are teaming up to give a free, special edition, Circuit Playground Express board to every attendee of PyCon. This is an event that takes place May 1st-9th in Cleveland OH, and it’s a gathering of the Python programming community.

The giveaway is to help show off the potential of Python on hardware. The team will also be running a Circuit Python sprint to work on libraries and core code. You can learn more about the event at us.pycon.org

Now for a quick look at more projects from the Adafruit team. The Ruiz Bros. have a handful of new Steven Universe themed projects. Two of my favorites are Rose’s Shield and Obsidian’s sword, both of which use foam board, neopixels, batteries, and a Circuit Playground Express board. They’re both great projects for beginners and are coded with Microsoft MakeCode blocks.

Dano Wall show’s how to make a robotic xylophone, using an Adafruit Grand Central board, a Protoshield, some mosfets and diodes, and a handful of solendoids to knock into the keys.

The project reminds me of Collin Cunningham’s robotic drum machine project, but with more solenoids to put to work. On the downside, the project doesn’t use MIDI, so you have to code in the music sequence, but it still looks like a lot of fun.

John Park has another Bluefruit project you have to check out. This one is a remote controlled rover that uses the same Feather and Crickit board combo as the light switch, but puts it on an aluminum robot chassis. For a little extra flare, there’s a Neopixel ring on the bottom for some remote controlled ground effects.

Speaking of Neopixels, Erin St Blaine has a guide on how to make these animated LED glowing star spats. The project uses a small Gemma M0 board and takes advantage of dot strand neopixels that have little plastic hooks built into them that can be sewn into your clothing.

And while spats might not something you find yourself in too often, it’s pretty easy to see how you could adapt this project for sleeves, or a tie, or a scarf. Get creative.

Another project you can adapt for unlimited uses, is this guide for faux-neon bike lights by Amelia T. The project uses Adafruit’s flexible silicone neon led strip, which I can personally vouch for being awesome stuff. It’s only downside is that it requires 12 volts. So to make it portable, Amelia connects it to an 8 AA battery pack with an on/off switch. And because there’s no soldering involved, it’s a great project for beginners, with an awesome payoff.

And one last project, from outside the Adafruit team, Bud Bennett has a guide on Hackaday that shows his progress designing an obstacle detection system for his dog Lucy, who has trouble seeing in low light.

He’s using an Adafruit Feather M0 Express board and a small time-of-flight distance sensor to help detect nearby walls or obstacles.

Bud is using Circuit Python to code everything, and it’s a work in progress, so if you think you can help him out with code or hardware, or an enclosure design, go check out his project page.

Alright, and now for a few tools and tips. Starting with tools, the hot new product on Adafruit right now is the PyPortal. It’s a 3.2-inch touch screen and project board all in one package, priced at $54.95.

It has an ESP32 built-in for handling Wi-Fi. There’s a temperature sensor, a built-in speaker, light sensor, a NeoPixel, microSD card slot, 8mb of built-in Flash, an I2C connector, two multipurpose I/O ports that can work as digital or analog, and a microUSB port. Kattni Rembor has a full overview of the board and all the specs over on Adafruit.

The basic idea is that this thing is a ready-to-go IoT widget. It can pull down stats, show you the weather, work as a digital photo frame. It was also made to be easily adapted into a conference badge, with loops on the corners you can latch into.

The project support is just rolling out, but already John Park has an Adafruit Quote Book project, and a handful of Internet stat trophies. Also, Brent Rubell shows how to use one as an IoT Data Logger, logging the light and temperature values from its built in sensors as an example.

And for this week’s tips, be sure to check out the Raspberry Pi Zero stand design made by the Ruiz Brothers. That’s been getting a lot of love, and a lot of remixes.

John Thurmond ported the Grains of Sand demo to work on the Adafruit NeoTrellis M4. Not only will the lights flow back and forth based on how you’re tilting it, but the LEDs will also change colors based on taps and button presses — and, you if you plug in headphones you’ll hear water droplets as they move back and forth.

Mike Barela posted some Circuit Python code for the Circuit Playground Express board that allows you to measure your heartbeat. By placing your finger over the light sensor and flashing the nearest Neopixel, the board can get a rough idea of how much blood is pulsing through your finger at each interval. You can then plot that pulse rate to the Mu editor plotter on your computer.

Mike also has a tip on how to use one Micro:bit board to control another using the built-in Bluetooth LE radios. For his demo, he shows how pressing the A and B buttons on one board controls the position of a connected servo on another, or lights up a neopixel strip. It’s a cool trick you could really weave into any project.

Alright, and that does it for this week’s show. Be sure to subscribe, leave a thumbs up or leave a comment. Thanks to everyone who left helpful and supportive comments on the last show. I also encourage you to get on the Maker Update email newsletter I send out. As of this week, it looks 100% better on your cell phone, which probably makes it 100% more useful to everyone.

Alright, thanks for watching, I’m going to be gone next week, but I’ll see you soon.