GIF Playing LED Hat How-To | #WearableWednesday #wearabletech #DIY #Arduino #tech

We posted about the GIF-playing LED top hat by Matthew Varas a while back – he has a separate post over here on Imgur with lots and lots more photos (and some video) that shows sequentially how the project was put together (spoiler: hot glue, “LOTS of hot glue”!).

Here is the promised write-up on the making of my LED top hat. It’s not a formal how-to, but should be enough to get someone else on track to duplicate and improve on it. Original post: https://imgur.com/gallery/6iKDv Imgur doesn’t like the links I’ve tried to post to products or code, but you can find a link to all the code in the description of the full Youtube video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vuri_0L1-YY This project was inspired by the 2018 FIRST Robotics Competition. I’m a mentor for a team and wanted to bring something exciting that also demonstrated the fun that can be had with engineering skills. The theme for the competition is 8-bit gaming, so I figured a low-resolution display would fit the bill. The hardware was built over the course of four or five evenings and the software took me about ten days of on and off fiddling to get worked out.


Flora breadboard is Every Wednesday is Wearable Wednesday here at Adafruit! We’re bringing you the blinkiest, most fashionable, innovative, and useful wearables from around the web and in our own original projects featuring our wearable Arduino-compatible platform, FLORA. Be sure to post up your wearables projects in the forums or send us a link and you might be featured here on Wearable Wednesday!


Adafruit publishes a wide range of writing and video content, including interviews and reporting on the maker market and the wider technology world. Our standards page is intended as a guide to best practices that Adafruit uses, as well as an outline of the ethical standards Adafruit aspires to. While Adafruit is not an independent journalistic institution, Adafruit strives to be a fair, informative, and positive voice within the community – check it out here: adafruit.com/editorialstandards

Happy New Year 2025
Happy New Year from Adafruit!

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!

Join us every Wednesday night at 8pm ET for Ask an Engineer!

Join over 38,000+ makers on Adafruit’s Discord channels and be part of the community! http://adafru.it/discord

CircuitPython – The easiest way to program microcontrollers – CircuitPython.org


New Products – Adafruit Industries – Makers, hackers, artists, designers and engineers! — New Products 11/15/2024 Featuring Adafruit bq25185 USB / DC / Solar Charger with 3.3V Buck Board! (Video)

Python for Microcontrollers – Adafruit Daily — Python on Microcontrollers Newsletter: Open Hardware is In, New CircuitPython and Pi 5 16GB, and much 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

Adafruit IoT Monthly — The 2024 Recap Issue!

Maker Business – Adafruit Daily — Apple to build another chip at TSMC Arizona

Electronics – Adafruit Daily — Low power?

Get the only spam-free daily newsletter about wearables, running a "maker business", electronic tips and more! Subscribe at AdafruitDaily.com !


No Comments

No comments yet.

Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.