TheaTTYr: a terminal theater for playing VT100 art and animations

TheaTTYr is a terminal theater for playing VT100 art and animations.

The VT100, introduced by DEC in 1978, was among the first video terminals to support ANSI escape codes.

The ANSI art scene used the VT100’s animation capabilities, made possible by codes that allowed cursor movement, deletion, and character updates to create animated effects.

Usually, they represent a long hand-crafted process done by a single person to tell a story. Some of these files may date back to the 1960’s and 1970’s.

Orhun Parmaksız developed this tool over a series of livestreams, which you can check out here.

You can see demonstrations and code on GitHub.

Running Discord on Raspberry Pi @Raspberry_Pi #PiDay #RaspberryPi

Discord is a great place to hang with people you like who like the things you like. We like it. Here are Adafruit, there’s a great Discord community where we explore Adafruit projects, plans, and customer projects, as well as hang out during our live shows! Here’s how to run Dicord on your Raspberry Pi, from PiMyLifeUp:

While Discord does not offer an official client for Linux ARM systems, plenty of third-party solutions exist. These solutions are pretty simple as most of them just load the web browser version of Discord but make it act and feel like the native application.

In particular, this guide will be showing you how to install and use a third-party Discord client called ArmCord on your Raspberry Pi. ArmCord is a lightweight Discord client that uses a newer version of Electron.

Learn more!

Raspberry Pi boosted by higher than expected profits #piday #raspberrypi

The reports are in and makers are up. RPI posted “higher than expected” profits in its first earnings report. Via the Financial Times:

The company reported a gross profit of $34.2mn in the first six months of 2024, higher than internal forecasts and a 47 per cent increase on the same period in 2023. Revenue for the period was $144mn, up from $89.3mn last year. It kept its full-year outlook unchanged.

Founder Eben Upton is quoted:

“I have become more bullish since the IPO about the quality of the domestic investor base here,” he said. “Just because there aren’t a lot of companies like us listed in the UK, doesn’t mean they can’t understand what we do.”

Read more!

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Each Friday is PiDay here at Adafruit! Be sure to check out our posts, tutorials and new Raspberry Pi related products. Adafruit has the largest and best selection of Raspberry Pi accessories and all the code & tutorials to get you up and running in no time!

How to use the Raspberry Pi Touch Display #raspberrypi

The Pi Foundation 7″ Touchscreen Display for Raspberry Pi lets you create interactive projects such as tablets, entertainment systems, and information dashboards. Via Raspberrypi.org

The Touch Display is compatible with all models of Raspberry Pi except the Raspberry Pi Zero and Zero 2 W, which lack a DSI connector. The earliest Raspberry Pi models lack appropriate mounting holes, requiring additional mounting hardware to fit the stand-offs on the display PCB.

…

You can mount a Raspberry Pi to the back of the Touch Display using its stand-offs and then connect the appropriate cables. You can also mount the Touch Display in a separate chassis if you have one available. The connections remain the same, though you may need longer cables depending on the chassis.

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Each Friday is PiDay here at Adafruit! Be sure to check out our posts, tutorials and new Raspberry Pi related products. Adafruit has the largest and best selection of Raspberry Pi accessories and all the code & tutorials to get you up and running in no time!

The Adafruit Metro RP2350 – The MagPi Issue 145 @TheMagPi

The MagPi Magazine Issue 145 features the Adafruit Metro RP2350:

The Metro has an Arduino-shield compatible RP2350 layout and now it sports the RP2350. It comes with 8MB of flash and an optional PSRAM spot. To round it out, there’s a microSD port, debug and STEMMA QT connectors, 22-pin HSTX output port and the classic header layout you know and love.

Check it out in Issue 145 of The MagPi. And sign up for the board from Adafruit here.

Read More, Download PDF, buy The MagPi now, subscribe

 

The Adafruit Feather RP2350 with HSTX Port – The MagPi Issue 145 @TheMagPi

The MagPi Magazine Issue 145 features the Adafruit Feather RP2350 with HSTX Port:

RP2350 flies high with the Feather format – now you can use any FeatherWings with this battery-powered dev board. It comes with 8MB of flash, a 22pin HSTX output port, Stemma QT, debug SWD, and optional PSRAM spot.

Check it out in Issue 145 of The MagPi. And buy the board from Adafruit here.

Read More, Download PDF, buy The MagPi now, subscribe

Game of Thrones: The Auction #ArtTuesday

Heritage Auctions and HBO are about to put more than 2,000 costumes, weapons, props, and set decorations from the Game of Thrones series up for auction. No matter how you feel about the ending, this is still a cool opportunity to view or bid on some great memorabilia. Time Out New York shares the details on what and how you can see these pieces through October 4th.

Every item display will remind you of key moments, including various shields representing all the warring houses, an actual dragon egg (wow!) and skull, a White Walker (imagine displaying that in your apartment), the Shame Bell and the blood-stained chiffon dress seen in “The Dance of Dragons” episode in season five.

On October 10, the lot will be up for auction. That’s right: a lucky buyer will get to own Jon Snow’s Valyrian steel sword, Jaime Lannister’s golden hand or even the melted Iron Throne.

Blocks Flock in DRIFT’s Interactive Installation #ArtTuesday

 

Dutch artists Lonneke Gordijn and Ralph Nauta form the art collective DRIFT. They’ve created an installation called “Murmuring Minds,” that recreates the swarming pattertns of animals with blocks that react to humans. Here’s more from COLOSSAL:

Representing the human desire for cohesion, clarity, and organization, sixty compact rectangular blocks scuttle across the gallery floor. Each component is autonomous and algorithmically programmed to follow the viewer or scatter in their presence. The mechanical installation highlights an ever-changing interplay between the viewer and the collective, exploring how one informs the other.

See more!

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Every Tuesday is Art Tuesday here at Adafruit! Today we celebrate artists and makers from around the world who are designing innovative and creative works using technology, science, electronics and more. You can start your own career as an artist today with Adafruit’s conductive paints, art-related electronics kits, LEDs, wearables, 3D printers and more! Make your most imaginative designs come to life with our helpful tutorials from the Adafruit Learning System. And don’t forget to check in every Art Tuesday for more artistic inspiration here on the Adafruit Blog!

DVI output adapter for RP2350 Feather HSTX port

The RP2350 Feather has an FPC output connector for accessing the HSTX – high-speed transmission – peripheral. This lets us drive DVI displays really easily! Today, we got the prototype PCBs for our HSTX to DVI adapter board; after connecting up a 22-pin FPC cable, we can test out DVI driving via CircuitPython. With HSTX, we don’t need to overclock or use PIO, and there’s a lot more RAM on the RP2350, so we can easily do 320×240 with 16-bit color and have plenty of SRAM left over. It would be neat if we could do DVI from the PSRAM as a framebuffer at some point for really big displays! – video.

NEW GUIDE: Adafruit Feather RP2350 with HSTX #AdafruitLearningSystem @Adafruit

RP2350 flies high with the Feather format – now you can use any FeatherWings with this battery-powered dev board. It comes with 8MB of flash, 22pin HSTX output port, Stemma QT, debug SWD, and optional PSRAM spot. It’s our first RP2350 board and we crammed a ton of goodies into our classic Feather format. It’s an excellent starter board to go along with your Pico 2.

The Adafruit Feather RP2350 with HSTX guide has everything you need to get started with this Feather. There’s pages for overview, pinouts, power management, CircuitPython, Arduino, factory reset and resources for download.

Read more at Adafruit Feather RP2350 with HSTX

Ultra high-resolution image of The Night Watch

(image via Rijksmuseum)

Check out this new high-resolution image of Rembrandt’s 1642 painting The Night Watch.

The process behind this image required both new technology and incredible precision, leaving very little room for error. I can almost hear a respectable and reserved sigh of delight from art conservationists across the globe.

The new high-resolution image of The Night Watch represents a major advance in the state of the art for imaging paintings, setting records for both the resolution and the total size of the image. The sampling resolution is 5 µm (0.005 mm), meaning that each pixel covers an area of the painting that is smaller than a human red blood cell. Given the large size of The Night Watch, this results in a truly enormous image: it’s 925,000 by 775,000 pixels – 717 gigapixels – with a file size of 5.6 TB!

Read more about it directly from Amsterdam’s Rijksmuseum.

Installing Ubuntu on the Raspberry Pi

PiMyLifeUp shares how to install Ubuntu on newer versions of Raspberry Pi.

Ubuntu is one of the most popular Linux-based operating systems known for striking a good balance between being stable and user-friendly.

One of Ubuntu’s neatest features is its full support for the newer versions of the Raspberry Pi. You get the same full desktop experience that you would get if you installed Ubuntu on a full desktop machine.

The one downside of using the full version of Ubuntu is that it is significantly more resource-intensive than Raspberry Pi OS. You must use a Raspberry Pi 4 with at least 4GB of RAM.

Read more.

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Each Friday is PiDay here at Adafruit! Be sure to check out our posts, tutorials and new Raspberry Pi related products. Adafruit has the largest and best selection of Raspberry Pi accessories and all the code & tutorials to get you up and running in no time!

This PS One Sleeper Build Packs a Raspberry Pi Compute Module 4 for Emulation and More #piday #raspberrypi

MrNiceThings Posted this PSone upgrade over on reddit! Write up from Gareth Halfacree on Hackster.io:

Taking off the lid of the system reveals a custom carrier board for a Raspberry Pi Compute Module 4, cooled by a chunky passive heatsink. The board brings out a single full-size HDMI connector, two USB Type-C connections, and a DC jack for power, all at the rear of the console — while what MrNiceThings calls a “weird octopus” of a hand-wired Arduino Pro Micro compatible microcontroller board connects the front gamepad ports to a third USB connection.

Keep an eye out for updates, MrNiceThings will post a GitHub link soon!

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PlayStation Spinner Controller

While this was originally designed for use with a specific Game of Life game on PSX, you can bring it into the modern era an turn it into a USB controller that can be used for emulation, game control, and perhaps most importantly — as a very fast mouse clicker!

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Each Friday is PiDay here at Adafruit! Be sure to check out our posts, tutorials and new Raspberry Pi related products. Adafruit has the largest and best selection of Raspberry Pi accessories and all the code & tutorials to get you up and running in no time!

Illuminate Your Garden with DIY Crystal Path Lights: WiFi Control and Sunset Timer Using Feather Huzzah ESP32

Are you looking to add a touch of magic to your garden? Check out the latest tutorial from Erin St Blaine and learn to build yourself some magical garden path lights.

This DIY project uses the Feather Huzzah ESP32 microcontroller from Adafruit and NeoPixel LEDs to create a modular, weather-proof crystal pathway that can be controlled from any smartphone or browser via WiFi. Plus, with the WLED app, you can set up dazzling light animations and a sunset timer to bring your garden to life at dusk.

From the guide:

Turn your garden into a nighttime wonderland with a twinkling lighted crystal-lined pathway.

In this tutorial, we’ll show you how to build your own modular, weather-resistant pathway lights that are anything but ordinary. These lights are fully controllable using the free, open-source WLED software, so you can create dazzling light shows right in your backyard with no coding required. Sync multiple strips together using your local WiFi network. Control and program the lights with your smart phone or any web-enabled browser, enabling them to come on at sunset and turn off again at whatever time you choose.

Full tutorial: https://learn.adafruit.com/garden-path-lights-with-sunset-timer/overview

Video Intro: https://youtu.be/cRqPQdOblF4

The new Pico VS Code Extension

Pico VS Code is a Microsoft Visual Studio Code extension designed to make your life easier when creating, developing, and debugging projects for Raspberry Pi Pico-series boards.

Whether you’re a total beginner or a seasoned pro, this tool is here to help you dive into Pico development with confidence and ease.

If you’ve ever tried to set up an embedded development environment, you know it’s no small feat. Beginners often find themselves tangled up in the complexities of build systems, SDKs, and toolchains. And let’s not even get started on cross-compilation; developing on one machine to run code on another introduces a whole new set of challenges.

Raspberry Pi posts:

That’s why we created the Pico Visual Studio Code extension: a user-friendly tool that simplifies the entire development process. We wanted to offer something that takes the guesswork out of setting up your environment, so you can start coding in an interface you’re already familiar with — Visual Studio Code — as quickly as possible.

See more and download via the post here.

What Is a Costume Designer? #ArtTuesday

Part of a fun series on No Film School, Jason Hellerman is outlining the role of Costume Designer. If you are interested in a job in tv/film, or are interested in costumes/cosplay its worth checking out.

A costume designer is a person tasked with creating the costumes for a film or TV show. They envision and create the characters’ outfits or costumes and make sure they have a balance on camera and reflect the personalities and aesthetics within the movie.

Read more!

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With Halloween around the corner now is the time to hone up on your Costume design skills. You could craft a Water Drip Dress with Oozemaster 3000 or modify one of the other projects on the Adafruit Learning System for a perfect fit

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Every Tuesday is Art Tuesday here at Adafruit! Today we celebrate artists and makers from around the world who are designing innovative and creative works using technology, science, electronics and more. You can start your own career as an artist today with Adafruit’s conductive paints, art-related electronics kits, LEDs, wearables, 3D printers and more! Make your most imaginative designs come to life with our helpful tutorials from the Adafruit Learning System. And don’t forget to check in every Art Tuesday for more artistic inspiration here on the Adafruit Blog!

CircuitPython 9.2.0 Beta 0 Released!

From the GitHub release page:

This is CircuitPython 9.2.0-beta.0, a beta release for 9.2.0. It has known bugs that wil be fixed before the final release of 9.2.0.

WARNING for nRF52 boards only: If your board has an nRF52 UF2 bootloader whose version is before 0.6.1, you will not be able to load CircuitPython 8.2.0 and later, due to increased size of the firmware. See these instructions for updating your bootloader.

Highlights of this release

• On nRF boards, fix programmatic resetting directly into bootloader.
• Fix BLE storage leak.
• Clear input after ctrl-C on UART REPL boards. This fixes some USB workflow issues.
• Update to Espressif ESP-IDF V5.3.1.
• Merge MicroPython updates from v1.23.
• Raspberry Pi RP2350 additions, fixes, and documentation.
• Espressif BLE improvements.
• Add math.dist().
• _eve updates.

Notable changes in 9.2.0 from 9.1.x

• Raspberry Pi RP2350 support.
• Update to Espressif ESP-IDF V5.3.1.
• Merge MicroPython updates from v1.22.2 and v1.23.
• Espressif BLE improvements.
• Add math.dist().
• _eve updates.

Download from circuitpython.org

Firmware downloads are available from the downloads page on circuitpython.org. The site makes it easy to select the correct file and language for your board.

Installation

To install follow the instructions in the Welcome to CircuitPython! guide. To install the latest libraries, see this page in that guide.

Try the latest version of the Mu editor for creating and editing your CircuitPython programs and for easy access to the CircuitPython serial connection (the REPL).

Documentation

Documentation is available in readthedocs.io.

Port status

CircuitPython has a number of “ports” that are the core implementations for different microcontroller families. Stability varies on a per-port basis. As of this release, these ports are consider stable (but see Known Issues below):

• atmel-samd: Microchip SAMD21, SAMx5x
• cxd56: Sony Spresense
• espressif: Espressif ESP32, ESP32-S2, ESP32-S3, ESP32-C2, ESP32-C3, ESP32-C6
• nordic: Nordic nRF52840, nRF52833
• raspberrypi: Raspberry Pi RP2040, RP2350
• stm: ST STM32F4 chip family

These ports are considered alpha and will have bugs and missing functionality:

• broadcom: Raspberry Pi boards such as RPi 4, RPi Zero 2W
• espressif: ESP32-P4 (currently no USB support)
• litex: fomu
• mimxrt10xx: NXP i.MX RT10xxx
• renode: hardware simulator
• silabs: Silicon Labs MG24 family
• stm: ST non-STM32F4 chip families

Changes since 9.2.0-alpha.2351

Fixes and enhancements

• Web workflow: warn when trying to leave page while an upload is in progress. #9625. Thanks @FoamyGuy.
• Fix gc_alloc_possible(). #9619, #9616. Thanks @tannewt.
• Clear serial input buffer when a ctrl-C is received in UART REPL. #9619, #9616. Thanks @tannewt.
• Merge MicroPython v1.23 into CircuitPython. #9638, #9611. Thanks @dhalbert.
• Extend _eve hardware opcodes for future compatibility. #9604. Thanks @jamesbowman.
• Fix reported type name for stdio objects. #9598, #9556. Thanks @timdechant.
• _eve: allow passing a single float to BitMapTransform*() methods. #9592. Thanks @jamesbowman.
• _eve: use ulab.numpy float vectors in Vertex2f(). #9589. Thanks @jamesbowman.
• Avoid crashing when display components are deinitialized. #9568. Thanks @jepler.
• Add math.dist(). #9560. Thanks @FoamyGuy.

Port and board-specific changes

Broadcom

Espressif

• Free _bleio.Characteristic memory properly. #9619, #9616. Thanks @tannewt.
• Update to ESP-IDF v5.3.1. #9607. Thanks @tannewt.
• More support for BLE descriptors. #9597. Thanks @tannewt.
• Fix resume from sleep. #9590. Thanks @tannewt.
• ESP32-C6: fix UART creation. #9580, #9579. Thanks @hdalbert.
• Fix board-specific pin initialization. #9580, #9553. Thanks @dhalbert.
• Validate analogbufio.BufferedIn sample rate. #9563. Thanks @jepler.

i.MX

nordic

• Fix resetting into UF2 bootloader even when the SoftDevice is not active. #9619, #9618. Thanks @tannewt.

renode

RP2

• Add picodvi 320×240 8-bit color support on RP2530. #9636. Thanks @tannewt.
• Document RP2350 A2 limitations due to RP2350-E9 erratum. #9633. Thanks @dhalbert.
• Enable proper RP2350 modules, including picodvi. #9617. Thanks @tannewt.
• Support RP2350 PIO features. #9610. Thanks @jepler.
• Add XOSC startup delay for RP2350 boards. #9600. Thanks @tannewt.
• rp2pio.StateMachine: add .offset and pc properties. #9594. Thanks @jepler.
• Update PIO USB submodule. #9571. Thanks @tannewt.

SAMx

SiLabs

Spresense

STM

Individual boards

• Adafruit Qualia ESP32-S3 RGB666: restore 120 MHz clock speed to fix display tearing. #9564. Thanks @tannewt.
• BDMicro VINA-D21 removed. #9637. Thanks @dhalbert.
• LILYGO T-Watch-S3: initialize AXP2101. #9582. Thanks @bill88t.
• M5Stack Cardputer: expose board.KEYBOARD; allow custom key-event handling. #9529. Thanks @konstantint.
• VIDI X V1.1: include board revision in name. #9613. Thanks @lorojakic.

Documentation changes

• Fix typo in top-level README. #9635. Thanks @mpaw.
• Improve Contributing.md and ports/espressif/README.rst with better links to Learn Guides. #9554. Thanks @samblenny.
• Improve type annotations in _bleio. #9548. Thanks @elpekenin.

Build and infrastructure changes

• Unpin autoapi version. #9591. Thanks @tannewt.
• Fix ReadTheDocs build. #9580, #9578. Thanks @tannewt.
• Upload ..x pull request merge builds to AWS S3. #9580, #9557. Thanks @dhalbert.
• Remove the debug printf adapter #9572. Thanks @jepler.

Translation additions and improvements

• Thanks for translations:
  • @andibing (English – UK)
  • @hexthat (Chinese – Pinyin)
  • @wtuemura (Portugese – Brazil)

New boards since 9.2.0-alpha.2351

• CircuitART Zero S3. #9593. Thanks @CircuitART.
• Espressif ESP32-P4-Function-EV. #9612. Thanks @tannewt.
• Fablab Barcelona Barduino. #9603. Thanks @JosepMartiElias.
• iLabs Challenger+ RP2350 BConnect. #9562. Thanks @PontusO.
• iLabs Challenger+ RP2350 WiFi/BLE5. #9562. Thanks @PontusO.
• Pimoroni Tiny FX. #9575. Thanks @bablokb.
• Seeed XIAO ESP32S3. #9530. Thanks @djairjr.
• Seeed XIAO RP2350. #9532. Thanks @tannewt.
• Weekin/Debroglie WK-50 Trackball Keyboard. #9585. Thanks @Glodigit.

Known issues

• See https://ift.tt/0yZnIsY for other issues, including issues still to be addressed for:
  • 9.1.x
  • 9.2.0
  • 9.x.x
  • 10.0.0
  • long term
• Native-code .mpy files are not working. This capability is currently enabled only on the winterbloom_sol board.

Thanks

Thank you to all who used, tested, and contributed toward this release, including the contributors above, and many others on GitHub and Discord. Join us on the Discord chat to collaborate.

Transforming Teardowns into Art #ArtTuesday

Deconstruction of mechanical items as art. Technology is beautiufl. Let’s look at it that way! Here’s more from COLOSSAL:

On individual strings of monofilament, John Peralta…suspends every single component of historic gadgets, from Rollieflex cameras to Singer sewing machines. The Austin-based artist reinterprets iconic technology to create complex, three-dimensional exploded diagrams using real objects.

Peralta recalls childhood memories of pulling a red wagon around the neighborhood with his brother. They would knock on doors and collect broken radios and tape decks so they could open the items up and explore what made each tick. Also inspired by the mind-boggling, mathematic renderings of Dutch artist M.C. Escher, Peralta spent a lot of time drawing with pencil and charcoal, and art eventually morphed from a hobby to a full-time pursuit.

See more!

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Every Tuesday is Art Tuesday here at Adafruit! Today we celebrate artists and makers from around the world who are designing innovative and creative works using technology, science, electronics and more. You can start your own career as an artist today with Adafruit’s conductive paints, art-related electronics kits, LEDs, wearables, 3D printers and more! Make your most imaginative designs come to life with our helpful tutorials from the Adafruit Learning System. And don’t forget to check in every Art Tuesday for more artistic inspiration here on the Adafruit Blog!

Park(ing) Day is September 20-22, 2024

Park(ing) Day is global art project that encourages folks to temporarily turn a curbside parking space into a public park or social space:

The PARK(ing) Day Network is the open-source, user-generated living archive of the worldwide event. We strongly encourage prospective participants and anyone interested in the event to join the Network to share and gather information, advice and, of course, photos, videos, interviews and anecdotes related to PARK(ing) Day installations.

Read more and check out the how to manual here

A Temperature Measurement Device Using an Adafruit Si7021 @Raspberry_Pi #PiDay #RaspberryPi

Here’s a project using the Adafruit Si7021 Temperature & Humidity Sensor Breakout Board. It utilizes a Raspberry Pi Zero and Pimoroni Display-o-Tron for the readout. Here’s more from Dr H via instructables:

[This project] allows to measure temperature and humidity using the relatively precise Si7021 sensor. In combination with a Pi Zero and a power bank you can build a small mobile device.

With some minor adaptions this example may also be helpful to construct other measuring devices using ic2 sensors. E.g. a cheap mobile photometer for field research, or a device to measure colors precisely. And, as it is i2c, you may use multiple different sensors in parallel.

See project!

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Each Friday is PiDay here at Adafruit! Be sure to check out our posts, tutorials and new Raspberry Pi related products. Adafruit has the largest and best selection of Raspberry Pi accessories and all the code & tutorials to get you up and running in no time!

Desk of Ladyada – the desk gets a lift! #DeskOfLadyada

This week at our desk, we’re working on my desk! We purchased a motorized ‘sit-stand’ kit so that we can spend a few minutes not on our butt. We can look at some design decisions for how the motors and controls work together.

We also got back a few prototypes we worked on from previous weeks: the sunken USB C breakout & ICS-43434 I2S mic work out of the box. Next, we might try wiring up the PCM1820 since it’s no firmware.

This week, we also managed to wrap up the Feather RP2350 HSTX – the tester needed a few tweaks, but the boards are finally live and in stock – more PCBs are on the way, so if you didn’t get one, sign up and we’ll have more in about a week. That means that 1) we can wrap up redoing the Metro RP2350 design, and 2) we can start ‘bones’-ing the Feather by swapping out components on the end.

On The Great Search, Ladyada looks for an I2S DAC with volume control and headphone amp. See the chosen part on DigiKey.

See the video below:

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Rasspberry Pi AI Assistant – Build your own AI friend! #piday #raspberrypi

A cute Pi friend from Adam Frydrych on Hackster.io. To acheive the compact size some hacking was required. Another unique feature is utilzing the PlayStation Eye for a cheap microphone array.

My AI assistant uses a similar approach to other, successful voice recognition systems (namely Rhasspy). In my case, however, the Raspberry Pi 4B runs a voice recognition software (called VOSK) locally and interfaces with a large language model hosted on one of my PCs through an OpenAI-compliant API endpoint (Ollama). Thanks to NordVPN’s Meshnet I can, and actually do, that from anywhere in the world.

See the full guide!

The GitHub repository can be found here: https://github.com/RoseyWasTaken/ASR-AI

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Looking to experiment more with AI friends? checkout the Infinite Text Adventure or Python Edge Speech Recognition with Voice2JSON on the Adafruit Learning center

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Each Friday is PiDay here at Adafruit! Be sure to check out our posts, tutorials and new Raspberry Pi related products. Adafruit has the largest and best selection of Raspberry Pi accessories and all the code & tutorials to get you up and running in no time!

Solar Camera Built With Raspberry Pi @Raspberry_Pi #PiDay #RaspberryPi

Photographers work to control light and time. Here is a project that can harness even more use-value from the sun. This project will create a solar camera, powered by Raspberry Pi. Here’s more from Hackday:

Ever since an impromptu build completed during a two-week COVID-19 quarantine back in 2020, [Will Whang] has been steadily improving his Raspberry Pi solar photography setup. It integrates a lot of cool stuff: multiple sensors, high bandwidth storage, and some serious hardware. This is no junk drawer build either, the current version uses a $2000 USD solar telescope (an LS60M with 200mm lens) and a commercial AZ-GTi mount.

He also moved up somewhat with the imaging devices from the Raspberry Pi camera module he started with to two imaging sensors of his own: the OneInchEye and the StarlightEye, both fully open source. These two sensors feed data into the Raspberry Pi 4 Compute Module, which dumps the raw images into storage.

See more!

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Each Friday is PiDay here at Adafruit! Be sure to check out our posts, tutorials and new Raspberry Pi related products. Adafruit has the largest and best selection of Raspberry Pi accessories and all the code & tutorials to get you up and running in no time!

PiEEG-16 measures 16 channels of biodata on a Raspberry Pi #PiDay @Raspberry_Pi

PiEEG-16 is a cost-effective gateway into the fascinating world of neuroscience. PIEEG-16 is a versatile hat for Raspberry Pi designed to measure 16 channels of various biosignals, including EEG (electroencephalography), EMG (electromyography), and ECG (electrocardiography) without any data transfer over the network (WiFi, Bluetooth) and processing and feature extraction directly on the Pi in real-time. It is the follow-on to the PiEEG posted last year.

Affordable Multichannel Measurement: The PIEEG-16 offers a budget-friendly solution for capturing 16 channels of EEG data, making it accessible to researchers, students, and hobbyists alike.

Open-Source Software: Accompanied by Python-based open-source software, the device enables users to process and analyze data with flexibility and transparency.

Near Real-Time Performance: The system boasts almost real-time capabilities, allowing for rapid adjustments to the ADS1299 chip registers and easy customization of the provided SDK to meet specific user requirements.

Satisfactory Signal Quality: Despite its affordability, the PIEEG-16 demonstrates a commendable noise level and accuracy in artifact detection, ensuring reliable data collection.

Validated Alpha Rhythm Detection: The device has been rigorously tested for its ability to detect alpha rhythms, a critical brain wave pattern in neuroscience research.
This innovative tool opens up new possibilities for neuroscience research and brain-computer interface experiments. By combining the power of RaspberryPi with specialized biosignal measurement capabilities, the PIEEG-16 represents a significant step forward in democratizing neuroscience research and exploration.

Examples are on GitHub. See the video below and more on the website.

Air Monitor With RP2040-Zero, SSD1306 Oled Screen and SHT31 Sensors (I2C)

Nice build from mechanical engineer and maker gubutek.

In this project, I used microcontroller to monitor the humidity and temperature of 2 different locations. The measured data is shown on SSD1306 oled screen

See more project details here on Instructables and YouTube.

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Each Friday is PiDay here at Adafruit! Be sure to check out our posts, tutorials and new Raspberry Pi related products. Adafruit has the largest and best selection of Raspberry Pi accessories and all the code & tutorials to get you up and running in no time!

The Python on Microcontrollers Newsletter: subscribe for free today

The Python for Microcontrollers Newsletter is the place for the latest news involving Python on hardware (microcontrollers AND single board computers like Raspberry Pi).

This ad-free, spam-free weekly email is filled with CircuitPython, MicroPython, and Python information (and more) that you may have missed, all in one place!

You get a summary of all the software, events, projects, and the latest hardware worldwide once a week, no ads! You can cancel anytime.

Ongoing Raspberry Pi RP2350 and Pico 2 coverage!

11,328 subscribers and growing

Try our spam-free newsletter today! 

It arrives about 11 am Monday (US Eastern time) with all the week’s happenings.

And please tell your friends, colleagues, students, etc.

Please sign up > > >

The Python on Microcontrollers Newsletter: subscribe for free today

The Python for Microcontrollers Newsletter is the place for the latest news involving Python on hardware (microcontrollers AND single board computers like Raspberry Pi).

This ad-free, spam-free weekly email is filled with CircuitPython, MicroPython, and Python information (and more) that you may have missed, all in one place!

You get a summary of all the software, events, projects, and the latest hardware worldwide once a week, no ads! You can cancel anytime.

Ongoing Raspberry Pi RP2350 and Pico 2 coverage!

11,328 subscribers and growing

Try our spam-free newsletter today! 

It arrives about 11 am Monday (US Eastern time) with all the week’s happenings.

And please tell your friends, colleagues, students, etc.

Please sign up > > >

Hand Puppet Eyebrow Mechanism Installation #ArtTuesday

If you are interested in making puppets or creatures the Stan Winston Shool on YouTube is worth checking out. In this video BJ Guyer goes over some mechanism basics.

In this excerpt from “Puppet Mechanism Basics – Part 2,” character fabricator & puppeteer BJ Guyer (Muppet’s Wizard of Oz, Glee, Crank Yankers) shows you how to install and test an eyebrow mechanism for a foam hand puppet. Free chapter includes advice on properly fastening a pull string to puppet eye mechanisms to prevent slippage and avoid unnecessary maintenance.

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Craft puppets with the Adafruit Learning System!

• MP3 Playback in CircuitPython with Lars the Sloth Puppet By John Park
• Animatronic Fizzgig MonsterM4sk Puppet By Erin St Blaine
• Micro:Bit Puppet “Text Message” System! By Jen Fox
• Chinese Dragon Puppet with Motion-Reactive Flame Effect By Erin St Blaine

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Every Tuesday is Art Tuesday here at Adafruit! Today we celebrate artists and makers from around the world who are designing innovative and creative works using technology, science, electronics and more. You can start your own career as an artist today with Adafruit’s conductive paints, art-related electronics kits, LEDs, wearables, 3D printers and more! Make your most imaginative designs come to life with our helpful tutorials from the Adafruit Learning System. And don’t forget to check in every Art Tuesday for more artistic inspiration here on the Adafruit Blog!

Armulet allows Raspberry Pi to run Arm code on RISC-V

ARMULET is a C ARMv6M / ARMv8M-baseline emulator by Raspberry Pi. Raspberry Pi is using Armulet to run Arm code on RISC-V in the RP2350 bootrom. The effort could be augmented to run legacy Arm code on a RISC-V only architecture.

VARMULET is a ARMv6M / ARMv8M-baseline ARMv6M emulator

The goals of VARMULET:

• small code size (currently 3K) and it can be placed in ROM
• ? fast enough to run USB boot code under RISC-V (which will also be a non-secure ARMv6M binary under ARM). VARMULET seems to be about 3x faster than ARMULET on RISC-V for now for one particular use case which is printf heavy. We will need to test with the boot code (and also SVC calls for things like memcpy, memset)
• TODO extensible by non ROM code, with no ROM specific functionality baked in (e.g. handling of priv mode, IRQ, breakpoints, SVC etc). It should basically be possible to use the emulator on Amy RISC-V programs, and also to extend it to support other 32 bit instructions for example

Per the RP2350 bootrom details:

“Because of limited space, we cannot duplicate a lot of code in RISC-V, so ARM code is emulated (varmulet) on RISC-V. We emulate (roughly) Arm8-M Baseline not Arm8-M Mainline as it has many fewer less complex instructions (Arm8-M Baseline adds a small number of, but very handy instructions over m0-plus)

• ‘a lot of’ is perhaps an understatement… pretty much everything is emulated now, including the main boot path, and API functions.
• there are a huge number of “asm hacks” where we drop into assembly, and a bunch of other tricks we use to save instruction/data space.
• Other than glue code, the only RISC-V code is really for RISC-V only APIs/setup, and stuff that needs to be optimized for speed.
• Unused ARM hardware hint instructions (and/or RCP instructions) are used to make code behave differently under real ARM or emulation.
• ARM only code is compiled for Arm8-M Mainline (m33).
• Emulatable code is compiled for Arm8-M Baseline (m23), though emulation of UDIV and SDIV is not included in the bootrom, since they are unused by emulated code. The actual instructions included are (over Arm6m0-plus)
  1. b.w, cbz, cbnz, movw, movt from Arm8-M Baseline.
  2. RCP instructions (they are NOPs).
  3. Special cases of mov.w. This is a Arm8-M Mainline instruction, but we want efficient loads of constants 0xmm00mm00, 0x00nn00nn and 0xpppppppp which are used by the RCP
  4. MSPLIM (also Arm8-M Mainline)
  5. SG (Arm8-M Mainline) we can redirect Arm NS->S calls to different code on RISC-V.”

See more on the Armulet GitHub.

How It’s Made Oil Paints #ArtTuesday

Oil paint is a type of slow-drying paint that consists of particles of pigment suspended in a drying oil, commonly linseed oil. How its made shared this video on Youtube!

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Every Tuesday is Art Tuesday here at Adafruit! Today we celebrate artists and makers from around the world who are designing innovative and creative works using technology, science, electronics and more. You can start your own career as an artist today with Adafruit’s conductive paints, art-related electronics kits, LEDs, wearables, 3D printers and more! Make your most imaginative designs come to life with our helpful tutorials from the Adafruit Learning System. And don’t forget to check in every Art Tuesday for more artistic inspiration here on the Adafruit Blog!

Folding paper flowers with a pneumatic robot #ArtTuesday

Rahix and Lena both really wanted to dive into the topic of pneumatics. They searched for a small project to build.

Those who know me (rahix) personally have probably at some point noticed my weird obsession with folding paper flowers. Not origami – often there is glue and cutting involved with these flowers – but something close to it. Some people have coined the term “fleurogami” for it. I can’t tell why, but I’m absolutely addicted.

The goal was to build a machine which automatically creases patterns into paper. It took a while, we learned a lot, but in the end, we made this project a reality.

There is a whole series by the pair that goes through the process section by section. See the posts here.

Feather RP2350 boards are being tested and are close to shipping

Our RP2350 Feather design is finally inching closer to release in the adafruit shop – having fixed a clock delay bug that was causing 50% of our boards to not boot, we’ve now got the tester working well and able to program and test boards in about 8 seconds. Now that we know the hardware is in good shape, we’ll fabricate more and get this first set of 150 pieces into the shop. sign up to get first dibs! Sign up here and video.

Using Waydroid on the Raspberry Pi to Run Android Apps #piday #raspberrypi @Raspberry_Pi

PiMyLifeUp shares how to use Waydroid on your Pi.

Waydroid is a container-based approach for running Android apps on a Linux-powered device such as the Raspberry Pi. This container approach allows the Waydroid to run a full Android operating system alongside your main operating system.

The most significant advantage of this method is that you can run an Android app as if it were a native Linux application. Waydroid seamlessly maps the Linux namespace to their Android equivalents while giving it full access to your Raspberry Pi’s hardware.

Read more.

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Each Friday is PiDay here at Adafruit! Be sure to check out our posts, tutorials and new Raspberry Pi related products. Adafruit has the largest and best selection of Raspberry Pi accessories and all the code & tutorials to get you up and running in no time!