Blooming Time: A Mechanical Flower

Beautiful project-in-progress from Samantha Song up on Hackster.io.

When I was young, I loved to play with plants, and one of my favourites is the mimosa plant, which will close when touched. However, in fantasy tales, flowers would open when they are touched, and I wanted to recreate this magical effect in my project.

With the 1 year anniversary of my boyfriend and I nearing, I wanted to dedicate to him a special present that I made myself, hence the birth of this flower. As both of us are forgetful people, I wanted the flower to remind us of special days, with the flower lighting up in a colour for each important day. On each day of the week, one of the petals will light up, reminding you of the day of the week in a unique and fun way. Not only is it a beautiful timepiece, when the flower is touched and “open”, it will also tell you the temperature, humidity, date etc., giving it a useful daily function.

Read more.

Adafruit’s Top Ten Instagram Posts of 2018 #AdafruitTopTen

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2018 brought us many things, including 46 THOUSAND more of you hanging out with us on Instagram. UHM, thanks for that, y’all are rad!

Below you’ll find the community’s most loved Adafruit Instagram posts. And hey, stick around! We’ve got some things up our sleeves for 2019 =)


1. Episode 3 of Women in Hardware! Presented by Adafruit and Hackster. We’re at Qualcomm’s headquarters in San Diego to talk supply chain management, embedded computing and more! https://www.hackster.io/womeninhardware #diy #electronics #Adafruit https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=84JlxHcLsKE


2. @kidrobot #munny #munnyworld @adafruit #circuitplayground #circuitpython


3. LED physics on a Pi powered Matrix! An Adafruit LED matrix displays the LEDs as little grains of sand which are driven by sampling an accelerometer with #RaspberryPi Zero! The #3DPrinted handles make it easy to hold the 64×64 #LED Matrix and the two buttons make it easy to switch modes or reset simulations! Guide: https://learn.adafruit.com/matrix-led-sand https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X3Ce89f873Y #3dprinting #adafruit


4. Cleaning the selective solder machine @adafruit #adafruit #manufacturing #manufacturingmonday #soldering #soldertherapy #dross #selectivesoldering #wavesoldering #electronics #opensource #madeinnyc


5. Relive the glory days of 128k by making your own Mac Classic, with #3Dprinting and #DIY #electronics. A #RaspberryPi and mini touch screen display make this an easy-to-build project. In this tutorial, we’ll guide you through the steps of printing, building and assembling your own Mac Pi! Check out the full tutorial https://learn.adafruit.com/mini-mac-pi/ #adafruut https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D_duo8Wogsw


6. Servos can make the heart grow fonder… They can also just make a heart! ❤️ What are some electronics that make your heart dance? . adafru.it/1967 . #adafruit #valentinesday #robotics #heart #servo


7. Soldering as seen through a microscope #adafruit #manufacturing #manufacturingmonday #solder #soldering #electronics #microscope


8. Heat form a milk jug into a translucent skull. More on @johnedgarpark John Park’s Workshop Thursday at 4pm EST. #hallowing #skull


9. Dead bug wiring an audio input to the Trellis M4’s STEMMA port for a no-solder interface. @johnedgarpark John Park’s Workshop Thursday 4pm EST for more audio visualizer and filter action!


10. In loving memory – Mosfet the cat 2001 – 2018 Mosfet the cat passed away last night, Ladyada & pt were present, he passed peacefully, without pain. Mosfet was a wonderful cat and helped us every single day, including helping us say goodbye to him together. There was not a day he wasn’t helping us in his own cat way. He was over 17+ years old. Mosfet was a black “hard to adopt” rescue cat that no one wanted, we think he was thrown away in a garbage bag before he was adopted due his fear of garbage bags in any form (he eventually got over it). Ladyada adopted him, Mosfet went to MIT, and made an adafruit with Ladyada and with pt. Mosfet was the part of our shows for the last 10 or so years, making an appearance live when Adafruit was an apartment company and recently on Desk of Ladyada. There wasn’t an electronic design that he didn’t stop by at Ladyada’s desk to check out what she was doing. Mosfet was up at 5am everyday with pt helping to run Adafruit in his own cat way, every day on his lap, at night hanging out with Ladyada. #mosfet #adafruit @adafruit https://blog.adafruit.com/2018/02/28/in-loving-memory-mosfet-the-cat-2001-2018/


(BONUS) 11. hellooo LED strips! It’s Day 2 of our “Best of” #NeoPixels week! . You can’t bake a cake without flour, sugar, and baking soda? Cream cheese? Muscadet? Ok – to be honest some of us don’t do much cake baking. But we do light up a TON of NeoPixel LED strips! . They’re everywhere – from our Firewalker LED Sneakers to our FloraBrella – and we can’t think of better essentials to get you started than this Adafruit NeoPixel LED Strip Starter Pack! .