The original idea came from the fact that I needed a way to alert people when I was coding “in the zone” so I would, hopefully, be left alone. My plan was to just mount a couple of LEDs behind my LCD that would illuminate the wall red with a button click. The LEDs weren’t bright enough to see during the day. Shining them through an acrylic rod with scores in it made the light more visible in bright conditions. The project grew into using different colors to indicate various moods I was in. Buttons became cumbersome so I added an ESP8266 and a mobile app that allows me to choose any color.
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.
