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Welcome to the latest Python on Microcontrollers newsletter! On the heels of last week’s 300th issue, we present issue 301 which continues reporting all the news. The Python on hardware community appears excited about Rasperry Pi’s RP2350 microcontroller. Additional information and some projects have been published about/using the RP2350 and this issue highlights them all. There is so much more, I hope you enjoy reading this week’s issue. And don’t forget, with Back to School happening, let students know about this resource, if you would. – Anne Barela, Editor
We’re on Discord, Twitter, and for past newsletters – view them all here. If you’re reading this on the web, subscribe here. Here’s the news this week:
A CircuitPython Day 2024 Recap
CircuitPython Day 2024 was last Friday and it was a huge success! Eleven videos/shows were presented throughout Friday and there was a time limited Adafruit discount code for that day. A huge thank you to all viewers, customers, presenters and more – Adafruit Blog.
If you missed any videos, check out the playlist – YouTube.
The RP2350 Hacking Challenge
We discussed the security built into the new Raspberry Pi RP2350 microcontrollers last week. Raspberry Pi has teamed with hextree.io to offer a security challenge to see if anyone can break through the layers of security on the chip. hextree.io also had a glitch board specifically aimed at the RP2350 at DEF CON 32. You can find out more about this $10,000 challenge at hextree.io, Raspberry Pi and on GitHub, with the contest running until September 7th.
A Closer Look at Raspberry Pi RP2350’s HSTX High-Speed Serial Transmit Interface
HSTX on Raspberry Pi 2350 microcontrollers is an exciting new peripheral. Providing output only, the first discussions have been about outputting video, although there has been talk of NeoPixel output too. CNX Software describes HSTX and its use in C and on CircuitPython alpha builds – CNX Software.
Yes, the New Raspberry Pi RP2350 Can Run Doom (Rather Well!)
Graham Sanderson, one of the designers of the new Raspberry Pi RP2350 microcontroller, has demonstrated running Doom on the RP2350-powered DEF CON 32 badge. The game includes sound and save game support and runs at a smooth 50 frames per second. This is another demonstration of the power and versatility of the RP2350 which has been shown running PalmOS and emulating a GameBoy Color, also on the DEF CON badge – X and GitHub.
The RISC-V Cores in the New Raspberry Pi RP2350
RISCV.Org looks at the RISC-V cores included in the Raspberry Pi RP2350 chips and Pico 2 board – RISC-V.
RP2350 Launch Partners
Raspberry Pi has a list on their website of 32 boards powered by the RP2350 at launch. This includes many in the maker space including Adafruit, Pimoroni, Wiznet, Cytron, Invector Labs, Solder Party, Seeed Studio and SparkFun – Adafruit Blog and Raspberry Pi.
A New MicroPython Disassembler is in ViperIDE v0.4.13
A new MicroPython disassembler is in ViperIDE v0.4.13 (be sure to enable it in Settings to check out) – X, IDE and GitHub.
Intel Sells Stake in Arm, Estimated to Raise $147 Million, as Part of Their Business Turnaround
Intel sells stake in Arm, estimated to raise $147 million as part of business turnaround – Tom’s Hardware.
This Week’s Python Streams
Python on Hardware is all about building a cooperative ecosphere which allows contributions to be valued and to grow knowledge. Below are the streams within the last week focusing on the community.
CircuitPython Day Streams
This playlist has the following videos:
CircuitPython Weekly Meeting
CircuitPython Weekly Meeting for August 12, 2024 (notes) on YouTube.
Project of the Week: an RP2350-based CircuitPython Computer
arturo182 on X (formerly Twitter) has the distinction of making the first Raspberry Pi RP2350-based CircuitPython computer. It sports a DVI display and USB keyboard, making it self contained – X.
Popular Last Week
What was the most popular, most clicked link, in last week’s newsletter? Five First-Rate Linux Distros For Power Users.
New Notes from Adafruit Playground
Adafruit Playground is a new place for the community to post their projects and other making tips/tricks/techniques. Ad-free, it’s an easy way to publish your work in a safe space for free.
Web API’s & You – Adafruit Playground.
24/7 Online Requests with CircuitPython – Adafruit Playground.
Integrating Circuit Playground Bluefruit into Home Assistant – Adafruit Playground.
Super Basic RGB Matrix Driver Example – Adafruit Playground.
News From Around the Web
CircuitPython: Python for microcontrollers, simplified – lwn.net.
Les Pounder gets a Raspberry Pi RP2350 board online with an Adafruit Airlift WiFi board – X.
The HiVolt badge has 1,984 small LEDs programmed via MicroPython. It can show scrolly text, mesmerizing effects, and more. It’s not just a bare board either – it has a full housing, a choice of acrylic color filter, and a custom lanyard – Ben’s Badges.
A portable way to create a digital magnifier with various functions using Raspberr Pi Zero, camera and MicroPython – X and The MagPi.
Some Fun with CircuitPython for #CircuitPythonDay2024 – Raspberry Pico Adventures via X.
“All done with another year teaching Python programming for 4-H… here’s our display at the county fair. Year 1 kids made blinky badges. Year 2 kids did a moisture display using an I2C sensor. Both years using Adafruit Circuit Playground Express boards and CircuitPython” – X.
Raspberry Pi RP2350’s day-one Rust support – hackster.io.
rot13labs Fox Hunt Badge running CircuitPython – GitLab via X.
MicroPython-powered robotics for all: hands-on with the Arduino Alvik – hackster.io.
The CircuitPython source for the Explorer Badge has been released – GitLab.
Make It Talk: Yoda talks & answers questions when touched (CircuitPython School) – YouTube.
A very simple MicroPython NTRIP client nominally for use on an ESP32 like the Adafruit Airlift board – GitHub.
How to choose the right microcontroller – Electronic Design.
It turns out REST APIs weren’t the answer (and that’s OK!) – YouTube.
If you got one of the DEFCON 32 RP2350 Badges, the files for the badge game are now up – GitHub.
PCBWay is showing a Raspberry Pi 5 case design which looks like the Fractal North design – PCBWay.
Splitting, concatenating, and joining strings in Python – Real Python.
11 beginner tips for learning Python programming – Real Python.
New
RP2350 flies high with the Feather format. Now you can use FeatherWings with this battery-powered dev board. It comes with 8MB of flash, 22pin HSTX output port, Stemma QT, debug SWD, and an optional PSRAM spot – Adafruit.
The Pico Jumbo is a hilariously oversized but fully functional Raspberry Pi Pico 2 for demos and learning – Pimoroni.
Solder Party’s RP2350 Stamp is an update to the company’s tiny RP2040 Stamp module and is based on a Raspberry Pi RP2350A. They also introduced the RP2350 Stamp XL module that makes use of the extra GPIO pins on the RP2350B, and a “RP2xxx Stamp Carrier XL” carrier board taking either module – CNX Software.
New Boards Supported by CircuitPython
The number of supported microcontrollers and Single Board Computers (SBC) grows every week. This section outlines which boards have been included in CircuitPython or added to CircuitPython.org.
This week there were two new boards added:
Note: For non-Adafruit boards, please use the support forums of the board manufacturer for assistance, as Adafruit does not have the hardware to assist in troubleshooting.
Looking to add a new board to CircuitPython? It’s highly encouraged! Adafruit has four guides to help you do so:
New Learn Guides
CircuitPython USB Workflow Code Editor Quick Start from M. LeBlanc-Williams
Networking in CircuitPython from Anne Barela
CircuitPython Day 2024 Countdown Clock from Tyeth Gundry
Theme Park Wait Time Display from Ruiz Brothers
CircuitPython Libraries
The CircuitPython library numbers are continually increasing, while existing ones continue to be updated. Here we provide library numbers and updates!
To get the latest Adafruit libraries, download the Adafruit CircuitPython Library Bundle. To get the latest community contributed libraries, download the CircuitPython Community Bundle.
If you’d like to contribute to the CircuitPython project on the Python side of things, the libraries are a great place to start. Check out the CircuitPython.org Contributing page. If you’re interested in reviewing, check out Open Pull Requests. If you’d like to contribute code or documentation, check out Open Issues. We have a guide on contributing to CircuitPython with Git and GitHub, and you can find us in the #help-with-circuitpython and #circuitpython-dev channels on the Adafruit Discord.
You can check out this list of all the Adafruit CircuitPython libraries and drivers available.
The current number of CircuitPython libraries is 491!
Library PyPI Weekly Download Stats
Total Library Stats
- 166,667 PyPI downloads over 331 libraries
Top 10 Libraries by PyPI Downloads
- Adafruit CircuitPython Requests (adafruit-circuitpython-requests): 11,956
- Adafruit CircuitPython BusDevice (adafruit-circuitpython-busdevice): 11,091
- Adafruit CircuitPython ConnectionManager (adafruit-circuitpython-connectionmanager): 9,850
- Adafruit CircuitPython Register (adafruit-circuitpython-register): 2,528
- Adafruit CircuitPython ADS1x15 (adafruit-circuitpython-ads1x15): 2,133
- Adafruit CircuitPython MiniMQTT (adafruit-circuitpython-minimqtt): 1,642
- Adafruit CircuitPython Wiznet5k (adafruit-circuitpython-wiznet5k): 1,500
- Adafruit CircuitPython DHT (adafruit-circuitpython-dht): 1,363
- Adafruit CircuitPython ESP32SPI (adafruit-circuitpython-esp32spi): 1,290
- Adafruit CircuitPython Pixelbuf (adafruit-circuitpython-pixelbuf): 1,283
What’s the CircuitPython team up to this week?
What is the team up to this week? Let’s check in:
Dan
I was on vacation for part of last week and the week before. I’m continuing the MicroPython merges into CircuitPython.
Melissa
This past week, I mostly focused on writing, recording, and editing my CircuitPython Day video. It goes over many of the challenges I faced while working on the CircuitPython Code Editor and how I overcame them.
Scott
This last week has mostly been RP2350 work. I’ve enabled RGBMatrix and PIO based USB host, fixed audio output crashing and added a couple more boards. I also fixed a crash on startup on ESP32-S3. Next I’m going to try updating to ESP-IDF 5.3 for our CircuitPython 9.2.0 release.
Liz
I’m back this week from vacation. If you’re ever in Portland, ME be sure to check out the International Cryptozoology Museum. It’s a really fun and weird spot.
As I’ve been catching up, I’ve been prepping for CircuitPython day. I’ve helped some folks pre-record their sessions and I think it’s going to be a great day full of CircuitPython content.
Before I left on break, I worked on two projects to countdown to CircuitPython day. The first uses a Feather ESP32-S3 TFT to display scrolling text for the countdown on top of the snazzy CircuitPython Day 2024 graphic. The Feather gets time using NTP over WiFi. The second project uses the RP2040 Feather DVI with an Adalogger FeatherWing to keep time offline and display the countdown over DVI. We have done quite a few countdown projects over the years, so I tried to come up with some new hardware combinations with these projects.
Upcoming Events
The next MicroPython Meetup in Melbourne will be on August 28 – Meetup. You can see recordings of previous meetings on YouTube. The July 2024 Video.
Espressif DevCon24 will be held Sep 3-5, 13:00-18:00 CEST. Call for presentations now – Espressif.
Maker Faire Bay Area returns to Mare Island Naval Shipyard on October 18-20, 2024 – Maker Faire.
Hackaday Superconference is an epic gathering of hardware hackers, makers, and tech enthusiasts happening November 1-3 in Pasadena, California – Hackaday and Eventbrite.
Send Your Events In
If you know of virtual events or upcoming events, please let us know via email to cpnews(at)adafruit(dot)com.
Latest Releases
CircuitPython’s stable release is 9.1.1 and its unstable release is 9.2.0-alpha.2350. New to CircuitPython? Start with our Welcome to CircuitPython Guide.
20240730 is the latest Adafruit CircuitPython library bundle.
20240806 is the latest CircuitPython Community library bundle.
v1.23.0 is the latest MicroPython release. Documentation for it is here.
3.12.5 is the latest Python release. The latest pre-release version is 3.13.0rc1.
3,991 Stars Like CircuitPython? Star it on GitHub!
Call for Help – Translating CircuitPython is now easier than ever
One important feature of CircuitPython is translated control and error messages. With the help of fellow open source project Weblate, we’re making it even easier to add or improve translations.
Sign in with an existing account such as GitHub, Google or Facebook and start contributing through a simple web interface. No forks or pull requests needed! As always, if you run into trouble join us on Discord, we’re here to help.
38,229 Thanks
The Adafruit Discord community, where we do all our CircuitPython development in the open, reached over 38,229 humans – thank you! Adafruit believes Discord offers a unique way for Python on hardware folks to connect. Join today at https://adafru.it/discord.
ICYMI – In case you missed it
Python on hardware is the Adafruit Python video-newsletter-podcast! The news comes from the Python community, Discord, Adafruit communities and more and is broadcast on ASK an ENGINEER Wednesdays. The complete Python on Hardware weekly videocast playlist is here. The video podcast is on iTunes, YouTube, Instagram), and XML.
The 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.
Contribute
The CircuitPython Weekly Newsletter is a CircuitPython community-run newsletter emailed every Monday. 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. You may also tag your information on Twitter with #CircuitPython.
Join the Adafruit Discord or post to the forum if you have questions.
