OmniVision’s OV7670 is a small and inexpensive camera module occasionally seen in maker projects. In the past, with the limited RAM and speed of the Arduino UNO, this tended to be for small stills, transferred over USB to a computer for further processing.
Technology marches on, and The SAMD51 chip on Adafruit Grand Central and other M4 boards has a feature specifically designed with these cameras in mind. Along with a new Adafruit library, it’s possible to get full motion video out of the camera and to a display…with most of the CPU still available for other tasks. It’s early yet, but we’re hoping this might have applications for object tracking and basic machine vision right on the microcontroller, no PC connection needed!
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.
