CircuitPython snakes its way to Atom!

A plugin for the Atom Editor to push lines from CircuitPython devices straight to your editor window – GitHub.

Middle School students make teacher “escape rooms” with CircuitPython

Teacher Daniel, on the Adafruit Discord chat, writes about his Middle School students’ projects:

“I wanted to show some pictures of my Middle School students who made an “escape room” (really a number of puzzles) based on the Adafruit Circuit Playground Express board. They did an awesome job of coming up with all sorts of fun puzzles, all of which used the Circuit Playground in some form or fashion. We created a number of puzzles that, when they are all solved, lead to the key to a treasure chest full of candy. We took the puzzles to 3rd, 4th, and 5th grade classrooms, where the teachers would try to solve the puzzles in 30 minutes, with all of their students cheering them on. If they could solve all the puzzles and unlock the treasure chest, their students would get candy! These are just a few of the students and their puzzles. I had 14 students, 10 puzzles/projects, and a ton of fun!”

CircuitPython: HOW-TO Creating Custom Boards!

Want to run Adafruit’s cool new electronics Python distribution on your board? Now you can! – hackster.io by Cian B:

“Over the past six months I have spent a lot of time porting different libraries to the Robo HAT MM1 board developed by Robotics Masters. This has lead to discovering a lot about these libraries, how they work behind the scenes and most importantly – what to do to add new boards in the future. This is the second in a series of write-ups I will be doing to help others who wish to port libraries for their boards. Many of the sources of information can be vague or difficult for outsiders to understand. I hope to ‘demystify’ and explain how to achieve a successful port for everyone. Today, we will be looking at the CircuitPython (and MicroPython) platform. It is a growing community started by Adafruit and is very active. There are currently only a few different board variants – mostly produced by Adafruit – but has gotten a lot of traction lately thanks to new Crowd Supply projects (like the Robo HAT MM1).”

Issue 19 – HackSpace magazine Laser-cut jewelry with CircuitPython

The new HackSpace Magazine Issue 19 highlights laser-cut NeoPixel necklaces by Sophy Wong –

“Jewelry is meant to be shiny, so it’s the perfect place for multicolor NeoPixel LEDs! The trick is: how to get everything you need for a NeoPixel circuit to fit inside a small piece like a pendant. Enter the laser cutter! Laser cutters are great for precision cuts in materials like thin wood and acrylic. In this project, we’ll use a laser cutter to create a sleek necklace that shines bright with NeoPixels from Adafruit. We’ll build the necklace in layers with precise cut-outs to house our electronic components. Our favorite wearable microcontroller, Adafruit’s Gemma M0, will control the NeoPixels, and we’ll write a program in CircuitPython that will make the most of a tiny battery.”

Feather format takes flight with the SparkFun Thing Plus

Adafruit Feather format takes flight with the SparkFun Thing Plus – SAMD51 – DEV-14713 –

“Is it power you seek? With a 32-bit ARM Cortex-M4F MCU, the SparkFun SAMD51 Thing Plus is one of our most powerful microcontroller boards yet! The SAMD51 Thing Plus provides you with an economical and easy to use development platform if you’re needing more power with minimal working space. This Thing even comes flashed with the same convenient UF2 bootloader as the RedBoard Turbo. To make the Thing Plus even easier to use, we’ve moved a few pins around to make the board Feather compatible…”

UF2 bootloader, Feather pin layout, should also be easy to get CircuitPython runnin’ on it too. According to one of the developers, expect it soon “The CircuitPython firmware for the board should be built up next week.”

IoT Makers workshop recap

The CircuitPython workshop at IoT Makers Israel was a blast! – Video.

“Thanks @adafruit for helping this happen. These little boards sparked a lot of creativity in the attendees!”

Who put Python in the Windows 10 May 2019 Update?

Big news, Python in Win 10!

“…the Windows team announced the May 2019 Update for Windows 10. In this post we’re going to look at what we, the Python team, have done to make Python easier to install on Windows by helping the community publish to the Microsoft Store and, in collaboration with Windows, adding a default “python.exe” command to help find it.”

News from around the web!

Issue 398 of Python Weekly mentions CircuitPython in the “Interesting Projects, Tools and Libraries” section, YAY!

AQO is an Air Quality Object that beautifully and passively displays the level of CO2 in the air – GitHub.

CRICKIT Exhibit Demo board, MacInspires Edition. Travis of MacInspires followed Adafruit’s CRICKIT Exhibit Demonstration Board guide to build an all-in-one demonstration of the wide variety of functions that CRICKIT for Circuit Playground Express can perform. This version uses a laser cut acrylic frame to improve upon the project, making it sturdier and more durable.

NeoLamp is a cool CircuitPython lighting project for a NeoPixel strip to change colour throughout the day using an RTC – GitHub.

seantibor/infinity_playground.py – GitHub.

This repository is a collection of lessons that showcase some of the things you can do with the Circuit Playground Express (CPX) while teaching you basic concepts of programming and hardware interactions. This assumes the usage of the Circuit Playground Express (CPX) board, specifically the one given during PyCon 2019 – GitHub.

Circuit Playground takes the cake 🙂 At the Reading Public Library Girls Who Code final celebration, a Circuit Playground Express cake was made since it was used to teach a lot in the club. The Girls made a trivia game, a robocat, a Creed from The Office quote machine, and a magic wand.

Now You Can Use the Qwiic Connect System with Your Favorite Development Boards with QwiiKit – hackster.io

Getting Started MicroPython: Programming Microcontrollers with Python, German edition of MAKE Magazine.

Hardware Design Files Released + More from TinyPICO.

There may be a trademark squatter on MicroPython – Twitter.

Espressif announced the release of the ESP32-S2 Secure Wi-Fi MCU, which is a highly integrated, low-power, 2.4 GHz WiFi Microcontroller SoC supporting WiFi HT40 and 43 GPIOs. Based on Xtensa® single-core 32-bit LX7 processor, ESP32-S2 can be clocked at up to 240 MHz – Espressif.

ESP8266 inside TI-83 Python module – TI-Planet & YouTube.

A Snek Family Portrait. These are all of the devices Keith has gotten Snek running on. Two from Arduino, five from Adafruit. Snek is tiny Python-like language for hardware – snek.

Discussion on Twitter about the upcoming PlayDate from Panic handheld, looks like it’s a STM32F7, good chance MicroPython will run on it.

Build a Hardware-based Face Recognition System for $150 with the Nvidia Jetson Nano and Python, using Python 3.6, OpenCV, Dlib and the face_recognition module by Adam Geitgey.

GitHub Sponsors allows the developer community to financially support the people who design, build, and maintain the open source projects they depend on, directly on GitHub.

Python built-ins worth learning – Trey Hunner.

Python is now a prerequisite for all these banking jobs by Sarah Butcher.

Wolfram Engine for Developers Now “Free” – works with Python – I Programmer.

How Fragmented is Android? – Very.

“I don’t know how CPUs work so I simulated one in code” –djhworld.

This issue of Increment explores the inner workings and wide-reaching impact of open-source software—and the communities that build it – Increment.

Video Games Monthly is a monthly subscription service that delivers retro video games to gamers who own classic gaming systems from the 1970’s – 2000’s.

NASA’s Mars 2020 Rover is heading to the red planet. Submit your name by Sept. 30, 2019, and fly along! – NASA.

The difference between keyboard and screen reader navigation – tink.

#ICYDNCI What was the most popular, most clicked link, in last week’s newsletter? CircuitPython Downloads on CircuitPython.org!

Made with Mu, Kushal’s Colourful Adafruit Adventures

Friend of Mu, community hero, Tor core team member, Python core developer and programmer extraordinaire Kushal Das, has blogged about the fun he’s been having with Adafruit’s Circuit Playground Express board, CircuitPython and Mu.

Kushal’s Colourful Adafruit Adventures – madewith.mu

Why Mu? Mu tries to make it as easy as possible to get started with programming but aims to help you graduate to “real” development tools soon after. Everything in Mu is the “real thing” but presented in as simple and obvious way possible. It’s like the toddling stage in learning to walk: you’re finding your feet and once you’re confident, you should move on and explore! Put simply, Mu aims to foster autonomy. Try out Mu today! – codewith.mu

Coming soon

HalloWing 2, the return. It’s summer, also known as pre-Halloween! Now that we’ve got the SAMD51 core and these cute new 240×240 IPS screens maybe it’s time for a HalloWing M4? Startin’ with a 1.3” TFT but will probably glow up into a 1.54”.

We’re liking our new high-res 2.13” eInk breakouts and FeatherWings – let’s turn em into a bonnet!

Some PyGamer 2 progress …

New Learn Guides!

Using micro:bit and CRICKIT with MicroPython 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!

Keep checking back for more updated guides!

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 155!

Updated Libraries!

Here’s this week’s updated CircuitPython libraries:

• Adafruit_CircuitPython_EPD
• Adafruit_CircuitPython_LIFX
• Adafruit_CircuitPython_MCP230xx
• Adafruit_CircuitPython_BMP280
• Adafruit_CircuitPython_Bitmap_Font
• Adafruit_CircuitPython_STMPE610
• Adafruit_CircuitPython_PyPortal
• Adafruit_CircuitPython_LPS35HW
• Adafruit_CircuitPython_HID

PyPI Download Stats!

We’ve written a special library called Adafruit Blinka that makes it possible to use CircuitPython Libraries on Raspberry Pi and other compatible single-board computers. Adafruit Blinka and all the CircuitPython libraries have been deployed to PyPI for super simple installation on Linux! Here are the top 10 CircuitPython libraries downloaded from PyPI in the last week, including the total downloads for those libraries:

Upcoming events!

Circuit Playground: A Beginner’s Workshop on Electronics and Coding! Sunday, May 19th and Sunday, June 1 2019. MakerSpace NYC – Futureworks MakerSpace at Brooklyn Army Terminal – Eventbrite, via Twitter.

PyLondinium is back for 2019, with a diverse program of sprints, workshops and talks. We’ll be returning to Bloomberg’s European HQ in the heart of the City of London, June 14th, 15th, and 16th, 2019 – pylondinium.org

July, 8 to 14th 2019. The EuroPython conference series was initiated by the European Python community in 2001 and started with EuroPython 2002 in Charleroi, Belgium, as the first major Python conference entirely run by volunteers – ep2019.europython.eu

Open Source Summit and Embedded Linux Conference, August 21 – 23, 2019 at the Hilton San Diego Bayfront. The Open Source Summit North America combines with Embedded Linux Conference North America (ELC). ELC has been a vendor-neutral technical conference where developers working on embedded Linux and industrial IoT products and deployments gather for education and collaboration. Open Source Summit brings together developers and open source professionals to collaborate and learn about the latest technologies – Linux Foundation.

PYCON UK 2019 – Cardiff City Hall, Friday 13th to Tuesday 17th September. PyCon UK is back at Cardiff City Hall, for five days of talks, workshops and collaboration. The conference also features a young coders’ day, themes dedicated to science and education, and numerous Python-related events – PyCon UK.

micro:bit Live 2019 is coming to BBC MediaCityUK, Greater Manchester, England on October 4-5. This will be the very first annual gathering of the global micro:bit community of educators and partners – micro:bit.

Latest releases

CircuitPython’s stable release is 4.0.1. New to CircuitPython? Start with our Welcome to CircuitPython Guide.

20190526 is the latest CircuitPython library bundle.

v1.10 is the latest MicroPython release. Documentation for it is here.

3.7.3 is the latest Python release. The latest pre-release version is 3.8.0a4.

1245 Stars Like CircuitPython? Star it on GitHub!

circuitpython.org updates!

Downloads are now available from circuitpython.org! This site makes it much easier to select the correct file and language for your board. The downloads page is here. Here are the latest boards added! There are now 59 boards!

Updates:

Robo HAT MM1 by Robotics Masters.

Escornabot Makech by Electronic Cats.

Programmable USB Hub by Capable Robot Components.

PyGamer by Adafruit.

Call for help – CircuitPython messaging to other languages!

We 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 is back

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.

12,393 thanks!

The Adafruit Discord community, where we do all our CircuitPython development in the open, reached over 12,393 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’ve started! The news comes from the Python community, Discord, Adafruit communities and more. It’s part of the weekly newsletter, 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.

This video podcast is on iTunes, YouTube, IGTV (Instagram TV), and XML.

Weekly community chat on Adafruit Discord server CircuitPython channel – Audio / Podcast edition – Audio from the Discord chat space for CircuitPython, meetings are usually Mondays at 2pm ET, this is the audio version on iTunes, Pocket Casts, Spotify, and XML feed.

Codecademy “Learn Hardware Programming with CircuitPython”

Codecademy, an online interactive learning platform used by more than 45 million people, has teamed up with the leading manufacturer in STEAM electronics, Adafruit Industries, to create a coding course, “Learn Hardware Programming with CircuitPython”. The course is now available in the Codecademy catalog.

Python is a highly versatile, easy to learn programming language that a wide range of people, from visual effects artists in Hollywood to mission control at NASA, use to quickly solve problems. But you don’t need to be a rocket scientist to accomplish amazing things with it. This new course introduces programmers to Python by way of a microcontroller — CircuitPython — which is a Python-based programming language optimized for use on hardware.

CircuitPython’s hardware-ready design makes it easier than ever to program a variety of single-board computers, and this course gets you from no experience to working prototype faster than ever before. Codecademy’s interactive learning environment, combined with Adafruit’s highly rated Circuit Playground Express, present aspiring hardware hackers with a never-before-seen opportunity to learn hardware programming seamlessly online.

Whether for those who are new to programming, or for those who want to expand their skill set to include physical computing, this course will have students getting familiar with Python and creating incredible projects along the way. By the end, students will have built their own bike lights, drum machine, and even a moisture detector that can tell when it’s time to water a plant.

Visit Codecademy to access the Learn Hardware Programming with CircuitPython course and Adafruit to purchase a Circuit Playground Express.

Codecademy has helped more than 45 million people around the world upgrade their careers with technology skills. The company’s online interactive learning platform is widely recognized for providing an accessible, flexible, and engaging experience for beginners and experienced programmers alike. Codecademy has raised a total of $43 million from investors including Union Square Ventures, Kleiner Perkins, Index Ventures, Thrive Capital, Naspers, Yuri Milner and Richard Branson, most recently raising its $30 million Series C in July 2016.

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.