Art & Robotics
I spent a lovely snowy afternoon using Adobe Firefly to generate images to for a 2.1″ 480x480px round TFT display. The results look amazing.
Using the IOT capable Adafruit Qualia Board and 2.1″ Round TFT with capacitive touch it’s programmed using CircuitPython.
I look forward to getting it animated and taking advantage of the touch and internet capabilities.
Measure CO2, temperature, humidity and send that data to the cloud, while displaying results on an 2.9″ e-ink display.
My first choice was to use the display vertically.
It feels a bit less like a price tag in this orientation.
This past August 18th marked CircuitPython day, a celebration of Python on Microcontrollers.
CircuitPython is an off-shoot of MicroPython maintained by Adafruit which aims to ease the use Python on constrained devices with limited RAM and Flash memory, reduced CPU.
AKA Microcontrollers.
This project uses:
Adafruit 2.9″ Grayscale eInk / ePaper Display FeatherWing
Adafruit ESP32-S2 Feather
Adafruit SCD-40 – True CO2, Temperature and Humidity Sensor
Adafruit BMP280 Pressure & Altitude Sensor
As well as a small LiPo battery
All of the code is open source and can be found at https://github.com/somenice/EnviroIOT
Beside indoor sensing of CO2, temperature, and humidity I’m also using the ESP32-S2 with Adafruit Requests library to fetch an XML file hourly from my local weather service for current outdoor temperature and humidity. Some challenges include when this xml feed changes due to weather events and warnings. I’ve included lots of try:except: blocks for each step of the Requests, Socket pool, Parsing to find where it was sometimes failing.
This BMP280 library also contains code I have happily contributed to which helps set the altitude of the sensor. Changes in pressure are registered as atmospheric rather than altitude.
E-ink is awesome for it’s low power. Combined with the ESP32-S2 deep-sleep capabilities I’ve managed to get hourly updates for days on a tiny 150mha battery.
All of the data is shared hourly to Adafruit IO. A cloud service which provides dashboards, alerts, events, and recording of historical data.
The majority of work was laying out the e-ink display and data labels using the CircuitPython displayio library. Two separate fonts are used separating Inside vs Outside data.
One cool feature is using a spritesheet for the temperature, humidity, and battery icons.
The data depends which icon gets shown:
As a serious microcontroller user or single board computer enthusiast, I have the choice to program with Arduino, C++, Python with Raspberry Pi, CircuitPython, JS etc. More often than not given this choice I choose CircuitPython.
Here is why I personally prefer it:
1) Mountable drive with code.py file – Plug in the device and it mounts like a thumbdrive on Windows, Mac, or Linux. Any text editor can immediately read and change the code running on the board. Not something that is immediate with Arduino.
2) The REPL – Or Read, Evaluate, Print, Loop on the command line.
This allows you to test and run small bits of code without committing permanent changes.
3) Circup – A command line package manager that manages and updates libraries found on any board plugged into the computer.
4) The community – So many great people contributing and sharing in a very welcoming environment.
I have a couple ideas for a case or mount but happy so far and I wanted to share for CircuitPython day.
Over the holidays I came up with an idea to create a micro slot machine coded in #CircuitPython using the Adafruit 5×5 NeoBFF Led Matrix. A micro switch, or limit switch is used to ‘pull’ the slot machine arm. A Piezo buzzer bleeps and bloops familiar tones and may signal a win. Ding-ding-ding!
I paired this add-on board with the Atmel SAMD21 QTPY microcontroller which provided some issues with limited memory. This particular microcontroller has constraints which made this a fun challenge. The ESP32 and RP2040 versions of QTPY microcontroller boards on the other hand would allow for more advanced libraries to be used out-of-the-box and thus could have a much different solution.
If you’d like to jump straight to the CircuitPython code you can find it here:
https://github.com/somenice/micro-one-armed-bandit
Otherwise I’ll walk through the build and code.
Parts required:
Adafruit 5×5 NeoPixel Grid BFF Add-On for QT Py and Xiao
Adafruit QT Py – SAMD21 Dev Board with STEMMA QT
Piezo Buzzer
Micro Switch w/Lever
Header pins and a bit of wire
Optional: Right angle USB-C cable
Pins used:
The micro switch – ‘NO’ or Normally Open pin is on A1
The Piezo is on pin A2 which requires PWM
The 5×5 matrix uses pin A3 by default
All share ground
I first clipped 2 header pins of 7 then soldered the 5×5 NeoBFF on top of the headers while fitted in a breadboard. Next I soldered the QT Py board to the bottom of the headers, back-to-back, making sure to line the boards in the correct direction which is smartly printed on the back of matrix.
There is really no case or supports. The lever arm and piezo buzzer were soldered to the back with bits of wire dead bug style. The right angle USB-C cable is perfect to have the matrix sit upright.
Almost all code is derived from some Adafruit CircuitPython tutorial.
One of the key functions of the micro switch as slot machine arm was to have the action happen on the release or rise of the lever.
This was made easy with Adafruit Debounce library.
from adafruit_debouncer import Debouncerif switch.rose:
The idea of the slot machine was to have 5 “Reels” which get randomly offset as they “spin”. Most physical slot machines will have different reel sequences but this example uses just one.
I declare hex values to identify the colour then manually created the “Reel” with different colour frequencies. Note the number of RED instances vs PURPLE.
RED = 0x100000REEL = [RED,GREEN,YELLOW,BLUE,PURPLE,YELLOW,RED,GREEN,BLUE,RED,YELLOW,RED,RED]
On release of the lever the first step is animate the existing columns down until coming slowly to rest with a random offset on the reel.
Yup, this whole thing relies on random.randint(0,len(REEL)) So not a hardened gambling system.
I played with piezo tones, simulated physical mechanisms and settled on some familiar notes that some 8-bit fans may remember while collecting coins in another world. The final slot gets a slightly higher note, adding that audio and visual stimulation.
One of the most fun and satisfying puzzles was working with only the Adafruit CircuitPython Neopixel library to animate the 5×5 RGB matrix using a nested loop of columns and rows.
for i in range(5): #COLUMNS
for j in range(5): #ROWS
Using various math equations, very simple but new-to-me discoveries via trial and error to produce very satisfying results.
pixels[20-(5*i-j)] = #TOP LEFT ACROSS
pixels[20-(5*j-i)] = #TOP LEFT DOWN
pixels[5*i+j] = #BOTTOM LEFT ACROSS
pixels[5*j+i] = #BOTTOM LEFT UP
pixels[24-(5*i+j)] = #TOP RIGHT ACROSS
pixels[24-(5*j+i)] = #TOP RIGHT DOWN
Once again, you can see the code and fork here: https://github.com/somenice/micro-one-armed-bandit
As earlier mentioned, the memory constraints were a fun challenge as well as using minimal parts on a basic microcontroller.
Being a hobbyist with almost endless access to sensors, radios, and actuators can often lead to scope creep. Nothing stopping me from endlessly adding functionality until I get bored and quit. This one was fun to get at least to V 0.1
What is it?
It’s an open source electronics kit, the Adafruit Macropad, embedded in a solid block of quarter-sawn tigerwood.
What can it do?
It’s a programable HID keyboard with OLED display and rotary encoder running CircuitPython. Which is a hardware specific, light-weight port of Python for microcontrollers.
The keys have RGB LEDs and can be programmed to send single or multiple keystrokes to the computer.
It shows up as a mountable drive, you can live-edit the code.py file so
when you save, the new code is automatically loaded. No compiling.
Similar to other computer mice, keyboards, or other peripherals it’s powered by USB so it does not run standalone.
The Woodworking began as a solid block of South American Tigerwood. Nice pattern and hardness but I can’t say I enjoy the smell of this wood. It’s got a gluey stank which is not particularly enjoyable.
I used a bandsaw to take a 1/4 inch veneer off the top. This will be the cover.
The bottom base was hollowed out using a plunge router. A device you must respect. It can clear out a lot of material quickly but at 10k to 30k RPMs it can easily get away from you in a hurry. Safety always first.
The two two pieces were then carved and fitted to accept the Macropad. It’s a bit of a shame to seal up the beautiful silkscreen art of this particular PCB.
The fitted Macropad had one other addition. I used a cut down credit card sized plastic magnifying glass using lenticular? magnification. The offset from the OLED gives the display a slight floating feeling.
Macrophotograpy of the Macropad
The project was finished with a couple coats of MInwax Tung Oil finish. Not a “true” tung oil but it makes the grain pop while not filling the wood pores.
The seams are a little more visible than I would like. From a distance however it’s not that noticeable. I’ve learned that minimal handling is required after separating using the “bandsaw box” technique to prevent “dings”.
As for programming I’m mainly using the application hotkeys demo found on the Adafruit Learning Guide but the sky is the limit because it can be programmed to do anything a keyboard or mouse can do.
Motivation to write this up comes from the recent Hackaday.io contest for Odd inputs and peculiar peripherals.
