Community Corner – January 9, 2014: The Featured Projects from this Week
Featured Adafruit Google+ Community Project
With temperatures dropping into the sad, solo, single-digits and the winds blustering about so wildly it’s getting hard not to take it personally, I find myself drawn towards clothing with warm comfy hoods (even more so than normal). Janell Amely shared a project this week in our Community that meets all my winter wearable wishes, with neopixels to boot! Check out her Friendship Finding E-Textile Monster Hoodie with Neopixels project here.
With thanks to all the cats, managed to finish barely before the contest closed. Vote for it on the Winter Wearables contest if you think it is awesome(till the 8th)! Figured out how to do an if/then statement with Neopixels, to keep them off unless the capacitive pads are being touched with a capacitive object (one is ground and the other is input-pullup). Code is hosted on Codebender.cc. Thanks Adafruit for all of the supplies!(read more)
Here’s what he had to say: “I’ve just finished a working prototype of my light based alarm clock, which uses Neopixels and your DR1307 clock breakout board.”
…After watching Wendy suffer repeatedly in the mornings, I’ve decided to build a prototype light based alarm clock. The idea being that (as various research / existing products indicate), waking up as a result of changes in light is much nicer than load angry noises.
The system will initially be simple. I’ll preset an MR005-001 clock breakout board (containing a DR1307 chip) to the ‘correct’ time from my PC, and use it to trigger a NeoPixel led strip.
Research as I understand it suggests that your circadian rhythm is largely dictated by ipRGC sensors in your eyes. These are especially sensitive to blue wave lengths, and not very sensitive to red; my clock will feature a red reading light (that automatically fades off after an hour), and a blue wake up light triggered at 8AM. (read more)
There are people making amazing things around the world, are you one of them? Join Adafruit Community! And check out scores of projects they shared this week after the jump!
Adafruit has had paid day off for voting for our team for years, if you need help getting that going for your organization, let us know – we can share how and why we did this as well as the good results. Here are some resources for voting by mail, voting in person, and some NY resources for our NY based teams as well. If there are additional resources to add, please let us know – adafruit.com/vote
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.
