NEW PRODUCT – BlinkyTape by Blinkinlabs – BlinkyTape is a very special LED strip, taking the smarts of NeoPixels and combining it with an Arduino-compatible for an all-in-one ready to go design. You don’t have to source your own microcontroller, power supply or connectors. Simply plug in a standard USB battery pack or wall charger, and you’re good to blink.
BlinkyTape has 60 independently controllable full-color RGB LEDs, all wrapped up in a weather-resistant silicone case. All this is powered by a integrated light processor (e.g. Atmega32u4 microcontroller) which has a standard micro-USB connector. This means you can connect it to a battery or power supply to run on its own, or it can talk to a computer for interactive installations.
When you first plug in your BlinkyTape, you’ll be greeted by a colorful rainbow pattern. But the fun doesn’t stop there: the BlinkyTape comes with a full set of companion software to make it easy for you to make the patterns and effects you want. You can graphically draw pattens and animations the LED strip using PatternPaint (http://blinkinlabs.com/software/patternpaint/). If dynamic lighting is more your style, check out our Processing library (http://blinkinlabs.com/blinkytape/docs/processing/) — it has a range of examples that allow you to create an LED light soundtrack to your favorite tunes, a backlight for your monitor, and more!
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, or even use Arduino IDE. Circuit Playground Express is the newest and best Circuit Playground board, with support for MakeCode, CircuitPython, 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 with Google Hangouts On-Air is every Wednesday at 7:30pm ET! To join, head over to YouTube and check out the show’s live chat – we’ll post the link there.
