Article: The PyPortal Lands (coding a Brexit petition counter) #PyPortal #Adafruit #Brexit @CodePope
Via CodePope.dev – they write about the new Adafruit PyPortal, the Internet of Things (IoT) device running CircuitPython – Python for microcontrollers.
So Adafruit’s latest is the PyPortal, an Atmel-SAMD51-powered, Python-running board with a touchable LCD display, an ESP32 for WiFi and BT, and a form factor which makes it easy to mount. I got mine with the Adabox subscription and it came with an acrylic enclosure and a tube you could fill with pennies (UK pennies work) to weight down the enclosure which has a curve in the back where it can sit.
It runs CircuitPython, Adafruit’s fork of CircuitPython built for ease of development and deployment across Adafruit’s various boards. And with the PyPortal, that includes a PyPortal class, used in lots of their examples, which makes the business of creating an internet connected dashboard a breeze… or at least a reasonable gust. Here’s some code I hacked up from another example to turn it into an Petition monitor for the Revoke Article 50 petition.
That PyPortal class is taking URLs for JSON data, status LED, backdrops (GIMP recommended to get that clean BMP feel), fonts (FontForge for making BDFs but oh such hard work and well crashy on the Mac), captions and positions. You then get to orchestrate it retrieving the data and that’s pretty much it.
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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.
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