Making a light-up Tree of Life with NeoPixels and CircuitPython #CircuitPython #QTPy #NeoPixel @molecularist

The Molecularist blog presents a 3D printed tree with NeoPixel lights illuminating the branches.

The brains of the operation is an Adafruit QtPy, chosen for its size, simplicity, and that I really only needed two pins. Also, because I intended to run this off of the USB jack, didn’t really need much more (the NeoPixels are powered from the GND and 5V pads underneath the QT Py – giving 5V directly from the USB).

Of course, the other special reason is that the QT Py runs CircuitPython, with which I prefer to code my projects. This also helped in the prototyping of the build.

For prototyping, I used a Circuit Playground Express, also from Adafruit. The CPX has 10 NeoPixels, so I could prototype much of the code – setting up the pixels, the animation, the logic behind it (I’ll get to that). And then all I had to do was copy the code over to the QT Py when everything was hooked up.

Read more about this build here.