Yes, it’s true that Valentine’s Day is inspired by a centuries-old pagan holiday that involves werewolves and chocolate wolf-milk, but it was still all about love. Sort of.
For us, Valentine’s Day is about connection and love of all kinds. With our parmour, our favorite classic Nintendo character, our cat, or our best friend. Love is love, folks. That’s a value we can believe in.
Here are some projects from the vaults of the Adafruit Learn System to help you show the ones you dig how much you dig them in a DIY way.
Heart Rate Badge: Have you ever told your loved ones that when you see them your heart skips a beat? Well now you can show them. Build a badge to show the beat of your heart! This wearable project uses the Polar heart rate sensor, which you wear around your ribcage and it wirelessly transmits heart beats to the receiver chip included in our educational starter pack. The badge can be worn on your clothes or bag, and is held in place by a magnetic pin back. Make the heart-shaped NeoPixel version, or use one of our 8×8 LED matrices with i2c backpack to display your heart rate as a number or make your own bitmap animations. (read more)
Animated Steampunk Cameo Necklace with OLED Display: This necklace uses an Adafruit Pro Trinket and an OLED screen to flash bitmaps of you and your loved one in between hearts. A tiny LiPoly battery powers the pendant discreetly in the black ribbon. Warning: Dog and cat pics may attract werewolves. Addendum: This may help your traditional celebration of the pagan roots of Valentine’s Day. (read more)
3D Printing for Chocolate Molds: 3D printing food is here and its delicious! Although we can’t 3D print chocolate on our Makerbot quite yet, you can design and print your own chocolate molds just in time for Valentine’s Day. (read more)
3D Printed Valentine with Bare Conductive Electric Paint: Light up your valentine’s geeky heart, with our 3Dprinted AdaBot card, using LEDs and Bare Conductive Paint. Turning the gears applies pressure to the batteries hidden inside heart, lighting up the LEDs. This guide will show you how to print with two colors and connect LEDs with paint! We even included a paper version! (read more)
Animated Flame Pendant: A little fire for your heart! But there’s no actual flame here, no heat…instead, LEDs and a microcontroller make a virtual flame that dances like the real thing. (In fact it’s playing a tiny video loop of a real candle.) We planned this animated flame simply as a piece of high-tech jewelry, but other uses are possible…a fire or lantern effect on cosplay props, a safer alternative to having candles on the table or as part of a romantic evening! (read more)