An Adafruit Pro Trinket microcontroller drives two grids of NeoPixel strip sandwiched in a pair of goggles, while a few buttons and some Sugru make a discreet, palm-able controller. A USB phone charger provides enough power to run the show through a whole convention weekend.
I appreciate the fact that this isn’t super bleeding-edge technology…there’s no facial tracking (though many assume that at first)…rather, it’s a mix of traditional puppetry, misdirection and lots of practice with a sprinkling of modern tech. The result is exceptionally emotive and captivating, and highly approachable as a cosplay or Halloween project! And then sharing all that makes it 500X better.
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 – we’ll post the link there.
