WHY?
Fun! This project was intended as a challenge to fit as much useful circuitry as I could onto a tiny, strange form-factor board. Eventually (after some external mechanical design), this can be able to be made into a wearable pin.
CORE FEATURES:
Atmega32u4 main processor, with schematic and pin numbering borrowed from the Arduino project (with which this project is not affiliated). Reprogrammable over USB.
RGB LED Eye: Everything’s got to have some RGB.
6-DOF IMU (LSM6DS3): 3-axis Gyro and Accel, communicates over I2C. Common library support available.
Bluetooth Low-Energy: BlueNRG-MS chip, with a BLE antenna on the rear leg.
Lithium-Ion Polymer Battery powered: Main logic is powered by a boost from battery voltage to 5V. USB feeds an on-board battery charger to charge the battery. The main boost has a true-off mode so when it’s disabled, it draws extremely little current, for long battery life. The intention when this is actually made into a wearable pin is to use the closing of the pin itself into the enable circuitry.
Absolutely Tiny: I mean, look at the photos! I’ve designed a variety of fun hobbyist electronics projects before that used the Arduino platform. As mentioned above, the way I made this project fun for myself was to try to cram as much circuitry as I could into a tiny, strange form-factor. What resulted was using every facet of extended manufacturing capability provided by Macrofab (3/3 traces, 4 mil vias) plus one feature that wasn’t listed online (epoxy filled vias, since I had to do via in pad for the BGAs).
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
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 7pm ET! To join, head over to YouTube and check out the show’s live chat – we’ll post the link there.
Python for Microcontrollers — Python on Microcontrollers Newsletter: CircuitPython 8.1.0 and 8.2.0-beta0 out and so much more! #CircuitPython #Python #micropython @ThePSF @Raspberry_Pi
