CircuitPython Day Celebrations!
Thank you everyone out there who celebrated CircuitPython day! We’re catching up on all the activities and more over the last week, last weekend, and what’s ahead. Here we go!
CircuitPython Day 2019 Code + Community = CircuitPython <3
“This year we at India Linux User Group -Delhi (ILUG-D) and Hardware Hacker’s club – Delhi decided to introduce CircuitPython to our local community members of Delhi, India and there was no better day to do this than the official Circuitpython day itself. Though the official day was on 8-8-2019 (being the most snakey day), we celebrated in on 4th Aug since it was a weekend.”
India Linux User Group -Delhi (ILUG-D) and Hardware Hacker’s club – Delhi – codensolder & photos.
CircuitPython Day’19: Blinking the Blinka: The official CircuitPython mascot!
On August 4, India Linux User Group -Delhi and Hardware Hacker’s Club – Delhi celebrated CircuitPython day! – medium.
CircuitPythonDay 2019 – Cake
There was cake 🙂 – YouTube.
IoT Makers Israel CircuitPython Workshop
“We held a special hands-on CircuitPython workshop on 8/8, the CircuitPython day. Thanks Adafruit for sending us the hardware, MakeLaB for hosting us, and Benny Meisels for assisting with the workshop!”
IoT Makers Israel CircuitPython Workshop – YouTube.
Uri also sent over “The Full Story of Designing and Manufacturing a Hardware-Packed PCB Badge Full of Surprises” – medium.
ASK AN ENGINEER with Scott and Ladyada
Special ASK an ENGINEER CircuitPython edition, Scott & Ladyada talked CircuitPython and took questions from the community – YouTube.
History of CircuitPython
Director’s cut edition of the History of CircuitPython with Scott and Ladyada! – YouTube.
Changing Lives through Open Source, Passion and Mentoring
For CircuitPython day Kattni, Ladyada, and Scott talked about the recent keynote at PyOhio: Changing Lives through Open Source, Passion and Mentoring by Kattni – YouTube.
“In trying to learn Python, I stumbled into a passion I had never considered. My path began with learning Python on hardware. Through mentorship and the help of friends, I began to flourish. Since then I have continued to contribute in ways I never thought possible, between code, community, and becoming a mentor myself. This is the story of my journey and how mentorship can change lives.”
Coming up! Lamba Labs Beirut Hackerspace
CircuitPython day at the Touch Innovation Lab – Downtown Beirut, August 17th, 2019 – Lamba Labs Beirut Hackerspace.
PyCubed – An Open-Source, Radiation-Tested CubeSat Framework Programmable Entirely in Python
PyCubed is a complete hardware + software stack for CubeSats that addresses many common pitfalls of small satellite building. PyCubed prioritizes: High reliability design practices, Low-cost & radiation tolerant components, Ease of use, Thorough documentation.
CircuitPython powered!
R is for Robot – Make Robot Friend
The latest Circuit Playground video is here. This one is all about making robot friends. Learn the ABCs of Robots & sing along with Adabot, Minerva, & Ruby! – YouTube.
FEATHER takes flight with the Wio Lite W600 from Seeed Studio
FEATHER takes flight with the Wio Lite W600 from Seeed Studio – Adafruit.
“Wio Lite is a new product line from Seeed, and Wio Lite W600 is the first product in this series. Similar to the great Adafruit Feather series, the Wio Lite series is small in size and uniform in pins. Different performance and features are available when equipped with different processors and modules. Actually, Wio Lite is compatible with Feather board pins, we believe Feather is a very successful development platform in the community, and there are already many cool Feather boards out there from Adafruit. The Wio Lite aims at adding different wireless solutions to enrich the Feather community and provide more possibility for Feather users. On top of that, we’ve released the Grove Shield for Wio Lite at the same time. With this shield, we bring over 200 Grove sensors, actuators and displays to Wio Lite series and the Feather community.”
And check out AWESOME-FEATHER, a curated list of awesome Feather form factor boards, guides, videos, libraries, software and resources.
CircuitPython gives you wings
Cardboard shoulder mounted wing – Twitter.
News from around the web!
CircuitPython powered Automatic Fume Extractor – hackaday.io & YouTube.
CircuitPython as a .NET Standard library (no native code). It can handle strings, create functions, call builtins… Twitter.
Arduino MKR 1010 Meets CircuitPython – Twitter.
PyBadge-DJ is a music sequencer inspired by LSDJ and nanoloop for CircuitPython – GitHub.
ItsyBitsyBreadboardAdapter: A stacking breakout adapter for the ItsyBitsy M4 Express – GitHub.
eBook FeatherWing! – Twitter.
Circuit Playground loudness necklace – Twitter.
1.3” IPS LCD, 240×240 over SPI. Driving it with CircuitPython – Instagram.
EmotiBit: Wearable emotion sensing for any project – emotbit.com
WebUSB demo! NeoPixel Color picker for Circuit Playground Express – YouTube.
Say “Hello” to the OrangeCrab – hackster.io
The Giant Board, a Linux board in an Adafruit Feather form factor, with CircuitPython, was fully funded on Crowd Supply.
“Goodbye Print Statements, Hello Debugger!” – Nina Zakharenko, PyCon AU 2019. Still debugging your code with print statements? Learn how to level up your ability to troubleshoot complex code situations by using the power of a fully-featured debugger in this talk aimed at all levels of programming ability – YouTube.
Python in Visual Studio Code – August 2019 Release – Microsoft.
Python is eating the world: How one developer’s side project became the hottest programming language on the planet – ZDNet.
An animated and smart Progress Bar for Python – GitHub.
Python Oberon v0.1.0: An emulator written in Python for the Project Oberon RISC processor. If PyGame is available, it will open a screen of the standard dimensions of 1024 x 768 pixels. There’s also a very crude “assembler.”
MinTOTP is a minimal TOTP generator written in Python – GitHub.
Google’s Python Class – Google.
PyCon Australia 2019 videos are posted! – YouTube.
Python Coding for Minecraft – Instructables.
Adafruit Becomes a Member of the RISC-V Foundation – hackster.io
Automate the small stuff. A new setting is available in your repositories to automatically delete head branches after pull requests are merged – GitHub.
GitHub Actions now supports CI/CD, free for public repositories – GitHub.
A curated list of awesome downloadable SVG/PNG/Font icon projects – GitHub.
With warshipping, hackers ship their exploits directly to their target’s mail room – TechCrunch.
The History of Clarus the Dogcow – 512pixels.net. Turns out Apple released stickers for iOS as well, Classic Mac.
NES and SNES controllers support 8 to 12 buttons with only three data pins (plus VCC/GND). Let’s attach them to a C64 – or any 6502-based system – pagetable.com
#ICYDNCI What was the most popular, most clicked link, in last week’s newsletter? Stereogram on E-Ink displays by Dan! – Twitter.
CircuitPython Weekly for August 12th, 2019 on YouTube
PyDev of the Week: Raphael Pierzina on Mouse vs Python
Made with Mu – PyperCard
PyperCard – Easy GUIs for All – pypercard.readthedocs.io. PyperCard is a HyperCard inspired Pythonic GUI framework for beginner programmers. PyperCard makes it quick and easy to create software with a modern user interface to use on your Windows, OSX, Linux, Android or iOS devices. PyperCard was created in response to the work of the wonderful folks at Adafruit who designed a simple GUI library for one of their CircuitPython based devices. PyperCard takes Adafruit’s original concept, refines it and makes it available on a large number of computing platforms. To achieve this, PyperCard currently uses the Kivy UI framework under the hood.
Check it out! All in 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
UV index for PyPortal!
From Kattni, a 3D Magnetometer.
From Bryan, the APDS-9500 is an interesting proximity/gesture sensor.
Ladyada made a little breakout for the ICM-20948 9-DoF/IMU sensor.
New Learn Guides!
CircuitPython Minesweeper Game from Dave Astels
Adafruit DS3502 I2C Digital Potentiometer from Bryan Siepart
Adafruit VCNL4040 Proximity Sensor from Bryan Siepart
PyPortal Wake-Up Light Alarm Clock from Isaac Wellish
Adafruit PyRuler from Kattni
Creating Slideshows in CircuitPython 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 171!
Updated Libraries!
Here’s this week’s updated CircuitPython libraries:
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:
| Library |
Last Week |
Total |
| Adafruit-Blinka |
1265 |
43081 |
| Adafruit_CircuitPython_BusDevice |
817 |
18270 |
| Adafruit_CircuitPython_MCP230xx |
391 |
4761 |
| Adafruit_CircuitPython_seesaw |
173 |
1793 |
| Adafruit_CircuitPython_Register |
163 |
7527 |
| Adafruit_CircuitPython_Motor |
129 |
5124 |
| Adafruit_CircuitPython_NeoPixel |
124 |
6332 |
| Adafruit_CircuitPython_PCA9685 |
108 |
4574 |
| Adafruit_CircuitPython_NeoTrellis |
106 |
510 |
| Adafruit_CircuitPython_CharLCD |
96 |
2325 |
Upcoming events!
At the next monthly Puget Sound Programming Python (PuPPy) meeting in Seattle, Scott will be giving a talk about CircuitPython and GameBoys. It is August 14th at Redfin 6pm – 8:30pm. Find out more on Meetup.
PyBay will be held August 15-18, 2019 in San Francisco, CA, USA with workshops Thurs-Fri and talks Sat-Sun. Bryan Siepert (@siddacious) will be giving a talk on Saturday titled “Accelerating Driver Development with CircuitPython”! PyBay is offered by SF Python, a volunteer-run organization dedicated to building a stronger Python developer community. PyBay offers influential speakers presenting crucial technologies to help beginners and seasoned developers alike get up-to-date quickly. Whether you’re interested in web technologies, data, devops, Python internals, or performance, PyBay will help you stay on top of your game. There will be workshops, tutorials, talks, keynotes, open spaces, lightning talks, a maker happy hour and more! Registration is now open! PyBay
Open Source Summit and Embedded Linux Conference, August 21 – 23, 2019 at the Hilton San Diego Bayfront, California USA. 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.
October is Open Hardware Month @ Open Source Hardware Association.
“October is Open Hardware Month! Check out the Open Hardware Month website. Host an event, find a local event, or certify your hardware to support Open Source Hardware. We are providing resources and asking you, the community, to host small, local events in the name of open source hardware. Tell us about your October event by filling out the form here. Your event will be featured on OSHWA’s Open Hardware Month page (provided you have followed OSHWA’s rules listed on the “Do’s and Don’ts” page).”
Read more, Tweet for speakers in 2020, and Open Hardware Month @ http://ohm.oshwa.org/
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.
Hackaday Superconference is November 15th, 16th, and 17th in Pasadena, California USA. The Hackaday Superconference is returning for another 3 full days of technical talks, badge hacking, and hands-on workshops: Eventbrite & hackaday.io
Latest releases
CircuitPython’s stable release is 4.1.0. New to CircuitPython? Start with our Welcome to CircuitPython Guide.
20190809 is the latest CircuitPython library bundle.
v1.11 is the latest MicroPython release. Documentation for it is here.
3.7.4 is the latest Python release. The latest pre-release version is 3.8.0b3.
1339 Stars Like CircuitPython? Star it on GitHub!
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 and above 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
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.
13,516 thanks!
The Adafruit Discord community, where we do all our CircuitPython development in the open, reached over 13,516 humans, thank you! Join today! https://adafru.it/discord
Discord now offers “server boosts” we have 12 on our server (level 2). If we get to 50 boosts, we get to level 3 and some other good features for the community: +100 emojis for a total of 250, 384 Kbps audio, vanity URL, 100 mb uploads for all members (and all the things we have now, like the server banner). Stop by and boost! 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.
And lastly, we are working up a one-spot destination for all things podcast-able here – podcasts.adafruit.com
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.
