Even though Halloween is over, we have still received some great blog tips for Halloween projects from the Adafruit community. Seen above is a great NeoPixel Jack-O-Lantern from Christopher Cantrell – you can check out more info on the build over at his GitHub page!
I have four bright neo-pixel plates and a couple of smaller LED grids. I might as well put them to work in a Jack-O-Lantern this year.
The plan is to use the two smaller displays for eyes. Three of the plates will make a mouth. I’ll offset them to better allow a smile. I’ll use the center stripe of the fourth for a nose.
I already have the propeller software going. I was planning a Circuit Cellar article (of course) on the grid mapping. This project will be a good addition to the article.
Adafruit Bicolor LED Square Pixel Matrix with I2C Backpack: What’s better than a single LED? Lots of LEDs! A fun way to make a small colorful display is to use a 1.2″ Bi-color 8×8 LED Matrix. Matrices like these are ‘multiplexed’ – so to control all the 128 LEDs you need 24 pins. That’s a lot of pins, and there are driver chips like the MAX7219 that can help control a matrix for you but there’s a lot of wiring to set up and they take up a ton of space. Here at Adafruit we feel your pain! After all, wouldn’t it be awesome if you could control a matrix without tons of wiring? That’s where these adorable LED matrix backpacks come in. We have them in three flavors – a mini 8×8, 1.2″ Bi-color 8×8 and a 4-digit 0.56″ 7-segment. They work perfectly with the matrices we stock in the Adafruit shop and make adding a bright little display trivial. It’s called a Bicolor LED, but you can have 3 colors total by turning on the red and green LEDs, which creates yellow. That’s 3 colors for the price of 2! Read more.
Adafruit NeoPixel NeoMatrix 8×8 – 64 RGB LED Pixel Matrix: Put on your sunglasses before wiring up this LED matrix – 64 eye-blistering RGB LEDs adorn the NeoMatrix for a blast of configurable color. Arranged in an 8×8 matrix, each pixel is individually addressable. Only one microcontroller pin is required to control all the LEDs, and you get 24 bit color for each LED. Read more.
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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 7:30pm ET! To join, head over to YouTube and check out the show’s live chat and our Discord!
Python for Microcontrollers – Adafruit Daily — Python on Microcontrollers Newsletter: CircuitPython 2025 Wraps, Focus on Using Python, Open Source and More! #CircuitPython #Python #micropython @ThePSF @Raspberry_Pi
EYE on NPI – Adafruit Daily — EYE on NPI Maxim’s Himalaya uSLIC Step-Down Power Module #EyeOnNPI @maximintegrated @digikey
