Adding a WiFi Co-Processor to CircuitPython
Surf the ‘net with Blinka! We love Blinka & CircuitPython, and want to share it with the world! But how can we get CircuitPython talking to everyone?
This guide will show you how to connect your CircuitPython board to the Internet, by using an ESP8266 or ESP32 as the ‘Wireless modem’ – we’ll even show you how to upload the required AT command firmware to the chip, all from your CircuitPython board – learn.adafruit.com
This also works with the Particle Argon, demo is the Bitcoin price tracker.
CircuitPython snakes its way to the Arduino MKRZero
Installing CircuitPython on SAMD21 Boards like the Arduino MKRZero by Shawn Hymel. Some SAMD21-based boards, like the Circuit Playground Express, METRO M0 Express, and Feather M0 Express, are designed to work with CircuitPython out of the box. Others, like the Arduino MKRZero, require a little more work. This guide will show you how to install CircuitPython on a variety of SAMD21-based boards – learn.adafruit.com
CircuitPython in 2019
As 2018 comes to a close, we like to reflect on how the year went and set goals for 2019. In the last two years (2017, 2018), this has been a blog post by Scott (aka tannewt). For 2019, we’d like to do it a bit differently. This time we’d like everyone in the CircuitPython community to contribute by posting their thoughts to some public place on the Internet.
We’ll read these over the holidays and into the first half of January. After the January 14th CircuitPython weekly, we’ll draft an overarching vision post for CircuitPython in 2019 and discuss it in the following meeting.
See the blog post for more details.
1,000 open-source repos
We now have 1,000 public repos on GitHub @ Adafruit Industries, many are for CircuitPython. Thank you to the community and our entire team for making open-source, sharing, and working together a core value for what we do! – GitHub.
News from around the web!
Making Robot Friends with the Crickit HAT for Raspberry Pi. Control of the motors, sensors, NeoPixels, capacitive touch, etc. is all done in Python 3. It’s the easiest and best way to program your Pi, and after a couple pip installs you’ll be ready to go. Each input or output is wrapped into a Python object so you can control a motor with simple commands – Raspberry Pi.
3D Printed Pop Figure Stand. Display your Pop figures in style with some custom 3D printed parts and pretty NeoPixels using CircuitPython by Blitz City DIY – hackster.io & YouTube.
Heat tracking robot friend using heat vision and CircuitPython by Jeffrey – Twitter.
Recap of the first semester incorporating Circuit Playground Express, MakeCode, and CircuitPython in a freshmen-level University Business Core Course by John Gallaugher – YouTube. Also, check out the full “CircuitPython & Circuit Playground Express” playlist.
Josh from All About Code published a post for Patreon Backers. It includes early BETA access for the new CircuitPython EduBlocks editors as well as an announcement about EduBlocks on Windows + Mac – Twitter.
All Things Open 2018 – Nina Zakharenko, Microsoft – Five Things You Didn’t Know Python Can Do – YouTube.
Pinout diagrams for the “Giant Board” by Groguard on Twitter.
Microchip has released a new DeviceDoc for the SAM D5X/E5X Family Datasheet of devices. If you are using one of these devices please read the document located at SAM D5X/E5X Family Datasheet. Microchip site & PDF.
Python snakes its way to the French version of the CASIO 90 + E. MCHooby emailed CASIO to see what/if other things like the REPL, GPIOs, or I2C Bus could be made available – arduino103.blogspot.com
Do you enjoy finding bugs and suggesting improvements? micro:bit is looking for help with testing Flashing via Web USB & their latest version of the Python editor – microbit.org
MicroPython based Christmas tree, video – Reddit.
micropython Chinese Community site & GitHub.
MicroPython examples for Edge Computing Part 3: Bandwidth Management – Digi.
Newt is a tiny embeddable language targeting processors with only a few kB of flash and RAM. Newt borrows semantics and syntax from Python, but only provides a tiny subset of that large language. The goal is to have Newt programs able to run in a full Python (version 3) implementation so that any knowledge gained in learning Newt will transfer directly to learning Python – GitHub.
Les describes using Google Text-to-Speech using the Python gTTS library.
diyHue is a project emulates a Philips Hue Bridge that is able to control ZigBee lights (using a Raspbee module, original Hue Bridge or IKEA Tradfri Gateway), Mi-Light bulbs (using MiLight Hub), NeoPixel strips (WS2812B and SK6812) and any cheap ESP8266 based bulb by replacing the firmware with a custom one. It is written in Python and will run on all small devices such as the Raspberry Pi – GitHub.
PythonTurtle: A learning environment for Python programming suitable for beginners and children, inspired by Logo – pythonturtle.org & GitHub. turtle in the Python Standard Library > Program Frameworks & check out Turtletoy.
Python 3.7.2rc1 and 3.6.8rc1 are now available for testing.
Python at Microsoft: flying under the radar by Steve Dower.
Cheat sheet: Publishing a Python Package. Notes and workflow for efficiently writing and publishing a Python package – hergertarian.com
Pysheeet was created with intention of collecting Python code snippets for reducing coding hours and making life easier – pythonsheets.com & GitHub.
A Python implementation of 30-seconds-of-code – GitHub.
Comixify is a Web-based working solution for video comixification – a task of converting a video into a comics – comixify.ii.pw.edu.pl
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to Python – Testing Your Code.
Differences between the deep learning approaches of Donkey Car and the Amazon Deep Racer – Twitter.
TensorFlow Course is a repository that aims to provide simple and ready-to-use tutorials for TensorFlow – GitHub.
The BeagleBoard.org Foundation is a 501c3 non-profit and is celebrating 10 years of the BeagleBoard.org community – YouTube.
The State of the Octoverse: new open source projects in 2018 – GitHub.
Code of Conduct for Open Source Projects – contributor-covenant.org
Rooted Tesla Model 3 running Ubuntu and YouTube – Reddit.
CircuitJS1 is an electronic circuit simulator that runs in the browser. It was originally written by Paul Falstad as a Java Applet. It was adapted by Iain Sharp to run in the browser using GWT – GitHub.
#ICYDNCI …. What was the most popular, most clicked link, in Python snakes its way to particle, LoraWan, calculators and more?? Python snakes its way to the CASIO Graphing fx-CG50 PRIZM calculator.
CircuitPython Weekly for December 17th, 2018 on diode.zone YouTube
PyDev of the Week: Irina Truong on Mouse vs Python
‘All a board’ CircuitPython powered snowflake
CircuitPython powered Snowflake boards at Stanford’s lab64. The event was held to get students excited about electronics regardless of their experience. Students could pick up a snowflake at various “stages,” whether it be pre-soldered, half-soldered, unprogrammed, etc. lab64 held a snowflake “design contest” that accepted SVG submissions for the board outline, students assembled the board following the interactive BOM, GitHub, soldering guide, and gallery.
Coming soon
Preview of “Grand Central”! An Arduino MEGA form factor METRO that we call “Grand Central” ATSAMD51P20 with 1 MB of FLASH, 256K SRAM and oOooOodles of pins!
The Adafruit nRF52840 is almost out the door!
From Discord: Maholli has a cool looking samd51 with an ESP32 + SD Card, Feather compatible.
New Learn Guides!
Adafruit CRICKIT HAT for Raspberry Pi Linux Computers from Ladyada
Installing CircuitPython on SAMD21 Boards from Shawn Hymal
Bluetooth Remote Control for the Lego Droid Developer Kit from Kevin Walters
NeoTrellis M4 Memory Game from Dave Astels
NeoTrellis Tabletop RPG Soundboard from Dave Astels
NeoTrellis M4 MIDI File Synthesizer from Dave Astels
ABC Soundboards with NeoTrellis from Mike Barela
Updated Guides – Now With More Python!
You can use CircuitPython libraries 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!
Check back next week for more Learn guides on using CircuitPython libraries with 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 117!
Updated Libraries!
Here’s this week’s updated CircuitPython libraries:
Upcoming events!
May 2019 Cleveland, Ohio! The PyCon 2019 conference, which will take place in Cleveland, is the largest annual gathering for the community using and developing the open-source Python programming language. It is produced and underwritten by the Python Software Foundation, the 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization dedicated to advancing and promoting Python. Through PyCon, the PSF advances its mission of growing the international community of Python programmers – PyCon.
CircuitPython Project Night is happening on 20 December 2018 from 6:30p to 8:30p in Chicago with the Chicago Area Python Users Group, ChiPy. It’s a beginner level workshop using Circuit Playground Express to learn CircuitPython. Seating is limited, so if you’re interested, registration is open.
Latest releases
CircuitPython’s stable release is 3.1.1 and its unstable release is 4.0.0-alpha.5. New to CircuitPython? Start with our Welcome to CircuitPython Guide.
20181211 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. The latest pre-release version is 3.7.2rc1.
627 Stars Like CircuitPython? Star it on GitHub!
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.
jobs.adafruit.com – Post your skills, get that dream job!
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 hackaday, Microcenter, Raspberry Pi and more. FEATURED JOB of the week is a Writer/Web Wrangler – MCCI Corporation. MCCI recently posted a lot of cool previews of a RISC-V FPGA / LoRaWAN Feather.
The Adafruit Discord community where we do all our CircuitPython development in the open reached over 9,347 humans, thank you! Join today! https://adafru.it/discord
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! The complete Python on Hardware weekly VideoCast playlist is here.
Contribute!
The CircuitPython Weekly Newsletter is a CircuitPython community-run newsletter emailed every Tuesday. The complete archives are here. 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.
