My son’s middle school class schedule is kind of complex. In fact, it sounds kind of like the beginning of a word problem: His math class occurs first period on Monday and Tuesday, but is at third period on Wednesday, and fifth period on Thursday and Friday…
In order for him to keep track of which class happens when on each day, we decided to create an electronic schedule reminder using Circuit Playground!
The Solution: the Class Scheduler
We can program the schedule into the Circuit Playground and then use it as a sort of cheat sheet to quickly check which class is happening at which period on a given day.
Instead of having the schedule written out as a bunch of text on a paper schedule or a digital display, the ten colored NeoPixels on the Circuit Playground can convey a lot of information very efficiently. We use the five NeoPixel LEDs on the right half of the board to indicate the day of the week, and the five on the left to indicate class periods one through five. The class period NeoPixels are color coded to the same color folder he uses for that class, so, green = science, for example.
We also built a pretty cool mounting panel with informational call-outs for the Circuit Playground that can be attached to his backpack with magnets, but this is optional. You can skip it entirely, or come up with your own solution.
Follow along as this guide will show you how to program and build your own Circuit Playground Class Scheduler!
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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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