Create your own animated ornament with CircuitPython #QTPy @microcenter

A lovely build for the holidays on the Microcenter community:

With the holiday season in full swing, two things are sure to happen: 1) you’ll want to do more holiday DIY projects, and 2) you won’t have time to do holiday DIY projects. Thankfully, the NeoPixel Christmas ornament is a fantastic DIY project that won’t take long to put together. This is a simple project that requires minimal materials.

We’ll be using an Adafruit QTPy for its small size and will be powering the ornament via the USB port, but you can use almost any microcontroller and can power it with a battery if you’d prefer. It’s a great way to dip your feet into the CircuitPython ecosystem if you haven’t tried it out yet.

We 3D printed a case using these files posted on Thingiverse. You could also use a laser cutter to build a box or make one from thick paper. Hot glue was used to hold everything in place, and the back pressed on without the need for glue. A bit of printer paper over the front can help diffuse the light and hide the circuit board, but we chose to leave ours exposed.

This quick project is a great way to add some extra light to your Christmas tree. With CircuitPython, it’s easy to create dynamic lighting, and assembly is about as simple as it gets. The most time-consuming part is printing the enclosure, which took about 2.5 hours on an Ender 3 v2.

Read more in the post here.


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