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Adafruit Weekly Editorial Round-Up: QT Py RP2040, Vivien’s Seismometer, Lemon Mechanical Keypad and More!

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ADAFRUIT WEEKLY EDITORIAL ROUND-UP

We’ve got so much happening here at Adafruit that it’s not always easy to keep up! Don’t fret, we’ve got you covered. Each week we’ll be posting a handy round-up of what we’ve been up to, ranging from learn guides to blog articles, videos, and more.

BLOG

Testing out QT Py RP2040 with Xiao Extension Board

This Expansion board is designed for the Seeed Xiao, and since the QT Py is pin compatible we thought we’d try it out with the RP2040 QT Py we just released to see how it works with CircuitPython. The RP2040 has toooons more flash and RAM than the SAMD21 so it’s a great little add-on! There’s a 128×64 OLED, button, piezo beeper, battery charger and booster, SD card and RTC.

Check out the full post here!

More BLOG:

Keeping with tradition, we covered quite a bit this past week. Here’s a kinda short nearing medium length list of highlights:

LEARN

Lemon Mechanical Keypad

Make a custom USB-HID keypad in the shape of a citrus fruit. This keypad features six mechanical switches for controlling media players like Spotify, iTunes, YouTube, etc. Powered by the Adafruit QT Py RP2040 and CircuitPython.

Inside the case is a NeoPixel Jewel that slowly fades in and out making the keypad illuminate. The QT Py and NeoPixel are housed in a 3D printed case with parts that snap fit together.

See the full guide here!

More LEARN:

Browse all that’s new in the Adafruit Learning System here!

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Make a Timelapse Camera Station with #RaspberryPi and #NeoPixels #celebratephotography

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Great project from Mitch K on Hackster.io:

I didn’t have a nice camera that was capable of incremental photos. In the past I have used my iPad mini to do some time lapses but those were just over a couple hours. I want long term like days into weeks. So I decided to use a Raspberry Pi I had laying around and see what I could make with that.

Read more

Photofooter

We #celebratephotography here at Adafruit every Saturday. From photographers of all levels to projects you have made or those that inspire you to make, we’re on it! Got a tip? Well, send it in!

If you’re interested in making your own project and need some gear, we’ve got you covered. Be sure to check out our Raspberry Pi accessories and our DIY cameras.

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New Guide: Make Your Own Cosplay Fireball Props with Motion Sensing

Cosplay Fireball

Check out the latest tutorial from Erin St. Blaine: make a magical floating fireball prop for your Cosplay character. A snap of the wrist makes the LED flames flare up brightly! This is a fun beginner project, with no soldering required. The code is done in Microsoft MakeCode, with a drag-and-drop code block editor, so it’s easy to change colors or animation triggers.

From the guide:

Complete your cosplay with this Magical Item: a floating fireball that flares up at your command. Whether you’re portraying Kael’thas Sunstrider from WoW or trading flaming shots with Super Mario and Luigi, this fireball will push your outfit over the top. This is a very easy project, with no soldering required. The Circuit Playground board makes motion-sensing programmable lights a snap. Customize your colors and your animation speed with Microsoft MakeCode’s drag-and-drop code editor. You’ll be stopped for so many photos that you’ll never make it to that panel discussion at DragonCon.

Full tutorial: https://learn.adafruit.com/cosplay-fireball-prop-with-motion-sensing/

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New Guide: Build a NeoPixel Crystal Chandelier with Speed & Brightness Control

DIY crystal chandelier

Take a look at the latest guide from Erin St. Blaine: build a three tiered chandelier with hanging DIY paper-craft crystals that light up with pixels inside. Easily add your own custom animations using CircuitPython and the LED Animations Library. This guide takes animated lights a step further, adding a rotary encoder knob that controls the brightness or the animation speed of the pixels, and also acts as an on/off switch. From the guide:

Floating crystals and glowing lights are a match made in heaven. This project combines a wide variety of skills and tools into one lovely project. Make a gorgeous hanging lamp with sparkly beads, glowing crystals, live edge wood and of course, lots of NeoPixels.

My chandelier is unique, and designed to show my personal style. Since you, dear reader, have your very own unique style, this tutorial will focus on giving you the tools to design and create your own one-of-a-kind bespoke hanging lamp. This tutorial will provide source files and ideas, and give guidance on how the electronics fit together.

This tutorial will also get you started with customizing your own software animations. The sample code uses CircuitPython and the delightfully easy to use LED Animations Library by Kattni Rembor. This code gives you a framework that allows speed and brightness control using a rotary encoder knob, so you can adjust the lighting to suit any environment or mood.

See the full build tutorial here: https://learn.adafruit.com/neopixel-crystal-chandelier-with-circuitpython-animations-and-speed-control/overview

crystal chandelier

We can’t wait to see the creative lamp you build with NeoPixels and Circuit Python!

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NeoPixel Coat Buttons #WearableWednesday

Add a little something special to your favorite winter jacket with this NeoPixel Coat Buttons guide in the Adafruit Learning System.

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Flora breadboard is Every Wednesday is Wearable Wednesday here at Adafruit! We’re bringing you the blinkiest, most fashionable, innovative, and useful wearables from around the web and in our own original projects featuring our wearable Arduino-compatible platform, FLORA. Be sure to post up your wearables projects in the forums or send us a link and you might be featured here on Wearable Wednesday!

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Use Sentiment Analysis to Determine Good News or Bad News

We’re getting major crystal ball vibes from
pollux labs’s project on Hackster.io:

In this project, you use an ESP32 to download current headlines from the Internet and use a sentiment analysis to find out whether they are positive or negative. A NeoPixel LED ring then shows you whether the news situation is good (green), bad (red) or something in between.

We assume that you are familiar with some basics and already know how to program an ESP32 with the Arduino IDE and connect it to the internet. You should also be familiar with the ArduinoJson library and know how to use a NeoPixel LED ring.

Read more

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How to Make a Bluetooth Controlled Sims Plumbob #WearableWednesday

No surprises here, 8bitsandabyte has put up another great project on Hackster.io:

We’ll be recreating the diamond that floats above the Sim’s head, also known as a plumbob, and making it Bluetooth controlled so you can set the colour to reflect your mood!

Read more and see more on YouTube

Flora breadboard is Every Wednesday is Wearable Wednesday here at Adafruit! We’re bringing you the blinkiest, most fashionable, innovative, and useful wearables from around the web and in our own original projects featuring our wearable Arduino-compatible platform, FLORA. Be sure to post up your wearables projects in the forums or send us a link and you might be featured here on Wearable Wednesday!

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Moana and Iron Man Props #CircuitPython #Props #3dPrinting @emwdx

Evan Weinberg posts about building two props this year: the Heart of Te Fiti from the Disney movie Moana and  a Tony Stark Arc Reactor.

The Moana prop uses an Adafruit Trinket M0 board programmed in CircuitPython with one green LED and the RGB DotStar LED on the board. And for the Arc Reactor:

Finishing the heart necklace got me thinking about doing something similar for my own costume, but I was running out of time. I decided to go for an Infinity War version and 3D printed this model.

Since I had a Circuit Playground Bluefruit, the (built-in) ring of Neopixels was perfect to use for powering the glowing effect. The Cyan color of red: 0, green: 255, blue: 255 was about right for the blue glow shown in the movie.

The color can be changed with a cell phone over Bluetooth.

GitHub and STL files are in GitHub links in the blog post here.