Props to Python on Hardware
We wanted to make it easy for anyone who wanted to make movie-quality props and Python powered… IT HAS ARRIVED! The Adafruit Prop-Maker FeatherWing.
The Adafruit Feather series gives you lots of options for a small, portable, rechargeable microcontroller board. Perfect for fitting into your next prop build. This Prop-Maker FeatherWing will unlock the prop-maker inside all of us, with tons of stuff packed in to make sabers & swords, props, toys, cosplay pieces, and more.
We looked at hundreds of prop builds over the years, and thought about what would make for a great low-cost (but well-designed) add-on for our Feather boards.
Shows up as a USB drive, the code can be edited with any text editor, even from a phone! And for music, just drop .WAV files on the “drive” – that’s it!
Check out the Lightsaber Test! – Video.
Happy #ElectronicHalloween
We just wrapped up many of the Halloween related guides and more using CircuitPython. Halloween is not just one day, it’s a state of mind we can all visit and revisit all year long.
Check out the videos, guides, and more. Have a safe and happy Halloween!
News from around the web!
400 of these hackable Python powered devices arrived in time for the Hackaday Superconference – Pasadena Nov 2-4 2018. Adafruit is sponsor. Special thanks to Digi-Key for helping us make this happen! The badges made it to CA last week, the 400 batteries are being ground-shipped and will arrive early this week with plenty-o-time to spare! For all our badges, we keep a repo’ on GitHub, here’s what is on the hackaday badge.
The Arduino MKR1300 board, ported to CircuitPython – GitHub. Thanks to community member sabas1080 we now have a CircuitPython port for the SAMD21 MKR1300! Note that support for the LoRa CMWX1ZZABZ is not included yet, but this is an excellent start. Check out our install guide for how to load CircuitPython.
Behind-the-Scenes curriculum of the CodeAcademy Hackathon featuring CircuitPython. Plug in and play, right on Codecademy. Ladyada and Phil at Adafruit suggested that CodeAcademy build a CircuitPython course so they are trying to make that happen. In this lesson, you will learn about Circuit Playground Express, the perfect introduction to electronics and programming. There is also a project where you build an “808” Drum Machine with… fruits! The lesson and projects are here along with an overview. Vote here for CircuitPython!
Build Jack: The 3D Printed, Blinking Jack-O’-Lantern for Halloween by Blitz City DIY, powered by CircuitPython – Video & guide.
Getting closer to a Feather form factor Linux board by Groguard – Twitter. Should be able to run CircuitPython on Linux just fine.
Introducing the Zephyr reel Board – watch this space as we get CircuitPython running on the Nordic nRF52 – Adafruit.
We’ll be posting up milestones on the Adafruit blog with CircuitPython Libraries, here’s our first post when we hit over 100+ Libraries.
“…CircuitPython is established” … Rasmus Lerdorf’s suggestions on coding languages for kids – Twitter. Rasmus created PHP!
Ahora Meow Meow soporta CircuitPython – Medium.
More progress on the Eurorack CV interface wing by @CedarGroveMakr – “CircuitPython and Adafruit are the frosting on this cake.” – Twitter.
Proof-of-Concept Drum Machine using Circuit Playground Express and CircuitPython as seen at the FresnoPython meetup at RootAccessCA – Twitter.
More progress and a preview of EduBlocks for CircuitPython – Twitter.
CircuitPlayground expansion board by Chris Fourie – Twitter.
Here’s a nice Freeform Friday by @MohitBhoite using a Feather M0 as the controller – Twitter.
How many micro:bits are out there? Two million BBC micro:bits distributed globally in over 50 countries – Adafruit.
What makes coding for MicroPython different? By Andrey Vlasovskikh – video.
Controlling Smart Power Outlets using an ESP32 – lemariva.com
The Banana pi BPI:bit “hello word” with MicroPython for micro:bit library – video & GitHub.
xArm – Python powered Industrial Robotic Arm By UFactory – Kickstarter.
A collection of flashcards for Python languages, frameworks, libraries, etc. – flashcardsfordevelopers.com
Object tracking with dlib – pyimagesearch.com
Tensorflow implementation of the Handwriting Recognition System described in Handwriting Recognition of Historical Documents with Few Labeled Data – GitHub.
PyDev of the Week: Anthony Sottile on Mouse vs Python
Adafruit CircuitPython Weekly for October 29th, 2018 on diode.zone YouTube
Made with Mu
Using Mu and CircuitPython to code up a 3d printed unicorn horn running on an Adafruit CircuitPlayground Expreess in the youth Zone at #MozFest – Twitter. Code is here.
Coming soon
CircuitPython powered open-source badges with LCD (or E-Ink), speaker, Feather-compatible and more.
CircuitPython powered holiday ornaments, control them with IR… Bluetooth later 🙂
This looks like a drop-in replacement module for ESP32-WROOMs so that projects that have a spot for an ESP32 can now use a ATSAMD51 instead if they like. Adafruit CircuitPython 4.0.0-alpha.2-84-gbd79c0c0d-dirty on 2018-10-27; CP32-M4 with samd51g19 – by siddacious on Discord.
New Learn Guides!
Hallowing Interactive Cat Toy from Dave Astels
Comparison and Experimentation with Flammable Gas Sensors – metal oxide MQ-3 and MiCS5524 from Kevin Walters.
Arduino to CircuitPython from Mike Barela and Dave Astels
Circuit Playground Express Compass from Dave Astels
MCP3008 – 8-Channel 10-Bit ADC With SPI Interface from Kattni
Updated Guides!
Laser Dog Goggles from Becky Stern
Updated Guides – Now With More Python!
You can use CircuitPython on Raspberry Pi! We’re updating all of our CircuitPython guides to show how to wire up sensors to your Raspberry Pi, and load the necessary CircuitPython libraries to get going using them with Python. We’ll be including the updates here so you can easily keep track of which sensors are ready to go. Check it out!
Adafruit Triple Axis Gyro Breakout
NeoPixels on Raspberry Pi
CircuitPython Libraries!
CircuitPython support for hardware continues to grow. We are adding support for new sensors and breakouts all the time, as well as improving on the drivers we already have. As we add more libraries and update current ones, you can keep up with all the changes right here!
For the latest drivers, download the Adafruit CircuitPython Library Bundle.
If you’d like to contribute, CircuitPython libraries are a great place to start. Have an idea for a new driver? File an issue on CircuitPython! Interested in helping with current libraries? Check out this GitHub issue on CircuitPython for an overview of the State of the CircuitPython Libraries, updated each week. We’ve included open issues from the library issue lists, and details about repo-level issues that need to be addressed. We have a guide on contributing to CircuitPython with Git and Github if you need help getting started. You can also find us in the #circuitpython channel on the Adafruit Discord. Feel free to contact Kattni (@kattni) with any questions.
You can check out this list of all the CircuitPython libraries and drivers available.
The current number of CircuitPython libraries is 105!
New Libraries!
Here’s this week’s new CircuitPython libraries:
Updated Libraries!
Here’s this week’s updated CircuitPython libraries:
Hacktoberfest!
Digital Ocean is once again encouraging open source contributions with limited edition T-Shirts. Even if you don’t want one, now is a great time to start contributing to open source projects like CircuitPython, its libraries, MicroPython or Python. Check this list for good first issues to start with on Adafruit repos, join on Digital Ocean to track your progress towards a shirt, and jump onto our Discord chat to join others who contribute!
Upcoming events!
October 27, 2018. As part of PyCon DE 18 PyLadies and MicroPython will be running a beginner friendly full day hands-on workshop on MicroPython and the Internet of Things – Meetup.
Latest releases
CircuitPython’s stable release is 3.0.3 and its unstable release is 4.0.0-alpha.2. New to CircuitPython? Start with our Welcome to CircuitPython Guide.
20181027 is the latest CircuitPython library bundle.
v1.9.4 is the latest MicroPython release. Documentation for it is here.
3.7.1 is the latest Python release.
Call for help – CircuitPython messaging to other languages!
We recently posted on the Adafruit blog about bringing CircuitPython messaging to other languages, one of the exciting features of CircuitPython 4.x is translated control and error messages. Native language messages will help non-native English speakers understand what is happening in CircuitPython even though the Python keywords and APIs will still be in English. If you would like to help, please post to the main issue on GitHub and join us on Discord.
We made this graphic with translated text, we could use your help with that to make sure we got the text right, please check out the text in the image – if there is anything we did not get correct, please let us know. Dan sent me this handy site too.
ICYMI – In case you missed it
The wonderful world of Python on hardware! This is our first video-newsletter-podcast that we’re trying out! The news comes from the Python community, discord, Adafruit communities and more. It’s part of the weekly newsletter here, then we have a segment on ASK an ENGINEER and this is the video slice from that! – Video. This video is a recap of last week’s newsletter.
Python powered jobs
jobs.adafruit.com has returned and folks are posting their skills (including CircuitPython) and companies are looking for talented makers to join their companies – from Digi-Key, to littleBits, to hackaday, to Microcenter and more!
Discord
The Adafruit Discord community where we do all our CircuitPython development in the open reached over 8,600 humans, thank you! Join today! https://adafru.it/discord
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.
