After building a 40 pin breakout board for my DE0-Nano I wanted to test it out with something fun but not overly complex. The DE0-Nano has an on-board accelerometer which can sense changes in acceleration and tilt, so I figured why not try to do something cool with it.
This article will show you how an accelerometer works, how it can be used to detect tilt and also how we can display that tilt ‘value’ visually on a large array of LEDs on my DE0-Nano breakout board. This way whenever we need to see if something is level, we can use this simple but fun tool to know, although don’t count on multiple decimal precision here!
Stop breadboarding and soldering – start making immediately! Adafruit’s Circuit Playground is jam-packed with LEDs, sensors, buttons, alligator clip pads and more. Build projects with Circuit Playground in a few minutes with the drag-and-drop MakeCode programming site, learn computer science using the CS Discoveries class on code.org, jump into CircuitPython to learn Python and hardware together, TinyGO, or even use the Arduino IDE. Circuit Playground Express is the newest and best Circuit Playground board, with support for CircuitPython, MakeCode, and Arduino. It has a powerful processor, 10 NeoPixels, mini speaker, InfraRed receive and transmit, two buttons, a switch, 14 alligator clip pads, and lots of sensors: capacitive touch, IR proximity, temperature, light, motion and sound. A whole wide world of electronics and coding is waiting for you, and it fits in the palm of your hand.
Have an amazing project to share? The Electronics Show and Tell is every Wednesday at 7pm ET! To join, head over to YouTube and check out the show’s live chat – we’ll post the link there.
