It’s half USB Key, half Adafruit Trinket, half mechanical keeb…it’s NeoKey Trinkey, the circuit board with a Trinket M0 heart, a NeoPixel glow, and a Cherry MX-compatible keyswitch. We were inspired by single-key macro pads we’ve seen. So we thought, hey what if we made something like that that plugs right into your computer’s USB port, with a fully programmable color NeoPixel? And this is what we came up with!
Start controlling motors, servos, solenoids. You also get signal pins, capacitive touch sensors, a NeoPixel driver and amplified speaker output. It complements & extends your boards so you can still use all the goodies on the microcontroller, now you have a robotics playground as well.
This project uses the Adafruit FunHouse with the new Adafruit CircuitPython Dash Display library to create a customizable Adafruit IO dashboard on your FunHouse. This guide, as well as the Dash Display library, is currently only for the FunHouse, but expect support to be added for other boards like the PyPortal and Feather boards with a screen and WiFi connectivity.
There are a few examples of peripheral devices that will work directly with this, but in theory, just about any device should work as long as it publishes to or is controllable via an Adafruit IO feed. The devices I’ve written examples for are:
I’ll go over 3 of the examples in this guide, but if you want to see the rest, you can find them all here.
ALS Deep Cut
With so many guides on the Adafruit Learning System, some amazing guides of years past get buried and lost. ALS Deep Cuts brings these guides back up to the surface. This week’s guide is from back in 2018.
This DIY shaker uses an Adafruit Crickit, Circuit Playground Express and DC motor. The speed is adjustable with a potentiometer. MicroUSB port is accessible for programming. The unit is powered by a power supply for constant usage. With 3D printed parts, electronics and hardware, you can create a lab shaker agitator.
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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.
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 and our Discord!
Python for Microcontrollers – Adafruit Daily — Python on Microcontrollers Newsletter: CircuitPython 2025 Wraps, Focus on Using Python, Open Source and More! #CircuitPython #Python #micropython @ThePSF @Raspberry_Pi
EYE on NPI – Adafruit Daily — EYE on NPI Maxim’s Himalaya uSLIC Step-Down Power Module #EyeOnNPI @maximintegrated @digikey
