This morning we’re having the last of our code sprints for CircuitPython at PyCon US 2018. It’s been an amazing whirlwind so far for us. The three of us decided to participate in the “hallway track” by skipping most of the recorded talks and focussing on meeting people. Scott (@tannewt) gave a lightning talk the first day. Dan and Kattni organized excellent open spaces where people could come play with their new Gemma M0s from Adafruit and CircuitPlayground Advanced Packs thanks to Microsoft. The first day of our two day sprint saw a dozen or so folks come to get their hands dirty in all things CircuitPython. Join us next week for our weekly meeting for all of the details.
We’ve enjoyed meeting the people who make up the Python community and learning about their diverse uses of Python from side channel attack analysis and generating music from data to visualizing algorithms with DotStars and practical Sphinx. All of the talks, keynotes and lightning talks are recorded and available on YouTube. Join us on our Discord as we digest the PyCon experience and the awesome talks we missed.
New stable MicroPython release!
MicroPython has released v1.9.4 with support for the ESP32! It also has improvements to the STM32 port, optional stack allocation of python objects and reduce code size of the Python parser.
Check out the release notes for a full list and download it from micropython.org.
PLOT of the week!
Sensor graphing with plotter. CircuitPython + Mu + CAPACITIVE TOUCH VIDEO CODE GUIDE
In the newsletter here so far, we’ve had SOUND, MOTION, TEMPERATURE and LIGHT.
News from around the web!
Code to Joy – Is learning to code in middle age a fool’s errand or a committed act of digital citizenship?
Arduino Catches IoT Wave
Richard Feynman “bot” (video) made with CRICKIT and CircuitPython
bubble sort @adafruit #CRICKIT & @CircuitPython animated audio animatronics
The @adafruit CRICKIT (beta) boards have ARRIVED! #MakeRobotFriend @circuitpython #CircuitPython
Nicholas Tollervey – Mu – How to Make a Kids’ Code Editor @ntoll #PyCon2018 (video)
What is CRICKIT? Overview, updates, and more @adafruit #adafruit #MakeRobotFriend
VGKits shares how to source and combine low cost Python-programmable modules for classroom projects. They’re considering pre-flashing boards with CircuitPython, yay!
Wow! Backdoored Python Library Caught Stealing SSH Credentials.
The Biopython Project, Open-source bioinformatics libraries in Python.
Code to Joy. “Python does not encourage showboaters or individualists, because it prizes communication and collaboration.”
Python for n00bs – A Cognitive and Educational Approach by Meg Ray, slides.
MicroPython for Pokitto. There was a beautifully illustrated article published in a Finnish computer culture magazine about running MicroPython on a Pokitto — a hand-held game console that was crowdfunded some time ago.
Upcoming events!
TONIGHT! Citizen Science with Circuit Python by Make: Magazine and Maker Media! Tonight Tue, May 15, 2018 6:00 PM – 9:00 PM PDT in Oakland, CA, details here.
June 8th to June 10th, 2018 is the PyLondinium conference in the UK, organised by PSF volunteers in the City of London. There are at least MicroPython sessions: Micropython Gotchas & MicroPython used in industrial applications.
July 23rd to July 29th, 2018 is EuroPython, a community conference with a call for proposals until May 20th on every aspect of Python: programming from novice to advanced levels, applications and frameworks, or how you have been involved in introducing Python into your organization.
New Learn Guides!
Gemma LightTouch from @kattni
Motorized Turntable from @Blitz City DIY
Latest releases
CircuitPython’s stable release is 2.3.1 and its unstable release is 3.0.0-alpha.6. New to CircuitPython? Start with our Welcome to CircuitPython Guide.
20180510 is the latest CircuitPython library bundle.
v1.9.4 is the latest MicroPython release. Documentation for it is here.
3.6.5 is the latest Python release. The latest pre-release version is 3.7.0b4.
Contribute!
The CircuitPython Weekly Newsletter is a CircuitPython community-run newsletter emailed every Tuesday. It highlights the latest CircuitPython related news from around the web including Python and MicroPython developments. To contribute, edit next week’s draft on GitHub and submit a pull request with the changes. Join our Discord or post to the forum for any further questions.
