Adafruit

Lately we’ve been hearing a remix of John Williams’ iconic Superman score, which is a lovely symphonic score. The TRON score is having a bit of a resurgence as well, with the mysterious TRON: Ares arriving this year.  When it comes to classic synth scores, TRON looms large, but a score that looms even larger and quite a bit darker is the indtrical tech-noir landscapes created by Brad Fiedel. And over Kebu has an extraordinary cover of the main theme as well as a longer video going into how he created his re-make of the 80’s classic. Here’s more from Kebu:

This time I’m focusing more on the actual arrangement and my re-arrangement of the song. But I’m also going through which synths I used, how I programmed the main sounds and how I mixed, recorded and mastered it.

Hear the cover and the in-depth explainer!

After digging ourselves out of a tariff-induced hole, we’re back to working on some hardware (yay). Last week we finished off the Sparkle Motion Stick by moving the microphone around. We’re thinking of using this case for the “ESP Trinkeys” we designed last year—we like the simplicity and snap-fit.

We also got to testing the SEN-66 QT adapter. It works great, so we booked PCBs.

We’re now getting around to testing our RP2350 Adalogger “bones board.”

With sunny days coming, we’re looking forward to doing more solar-based projects. While you could just wire a 6V panel with a diode to the VIN pin, we think it would be nice to design a FeatherWing to make connecting and monitoring easy.

And on The Great Search: Power Monitor with 2 Inputs

Video:

Steve Mould shared this video on Youtube!

The Hirox microscope has a rotary head attachments that allows you to sweep around your tiny subject like a drone!

Explore a 108 billion pixel scan of Girl with a pearl earring!

With sunny days ahead, we’re working on more solar projects. One thing that comes up often is we need is a diode to keep the PV panel current only flowing into a charging circuit. Often times folks use a Schottky diode for their low forward voltage.

But as you get to an Amp or more, you’re still looking at a loss of 0.5V, or 0.5W and that number only goes up with higher currents!

Thus the need for an ‘ideal diode’: we’ve already got a breakout for an ideal diode but it’s only 5V max. Let’s look for one that can handle higher voltages and at least an Amp of current.

See the chosen part on DigiKey

See the video below:

For our solar-capable Feathers, we’re going to design a FeatherWing helper board to assist with solar connection and monitoring. To do that, we will want to monitor two voltages (the LiPoly battery and the solar panel) and one current (the panel draw).

Traditionally, we’ve liked using the INA219 and friends—let’s see if we can find a voltage/current monitor chip with an I2C interface and at least two monitoring inputs.

See the chosen part on DigiKey

See the video below:

If you missed this week’s livestream of John Park’s Product Pick of the Week, not to worry, here’s the video. This week’s pick is the TLV320DAC3100 I2S DAC w Headphone and Speaker Outs! Watch the video to find out about the TLV320DAC3100 I2S DAC w Headphone and Speaker Outs, how to use it, a live demo, and more.

Want more JP’s Product Pick of the Week?! Tune in every Tuesday at 4pm ET and 1pm PT on Youtube LIVE, Twitch, Periscope (Twitter) and Facebook. LIVE TEXT CHAT IS HERE in the Adafruit Discord chat!

Catch previous editions on YouTube and don’t miss our gift guide!

K.W. Lee was a pioneer in the journalism world. Known as the “Godfather of Asian-American Journalism”, Lee was the first Korean immigrant journalist for a mainstream newspaper in the continental U.S. The legacy he leaves behind was covered by the Sacramento Bee upon his passing this March.

Believed to be the first Korean immigrant to work for a mainstream U.S. newspaper, Lee carved out an extraordinary career as an investigative reporter, editor, publisher and mentor. His impact was national, but his work often centered on communities overlooked by traditional media.

With the successful launch of the TLV320DAC3100, we can do two things: keep jamming on Fruit Jam, and whip up a new breakout for its sister chip, the TLV320AIC3100 .

This one features stereo microphone inputs instead of two mix-in analog inputs and a DOUT pin. Technically, it has three mic inputs—one is differential/route-able, and we’re connecting that to the headphone jack since most headsets have an electret mic these days.

This chip is a really nice all-in-one I²S codec: perfect when you want stereo inputs, stereo headphone out, and mono speaker out. Honestly, we’re exploring whether it could be a viable replacement for the now-super-discontinued WM8960, especially since it can be configured not to require an external MCLK.

Do you remember the first time you understood the nature of a Venus flytrap? The very first time you heard that there lives, on this planet, a plant that with teeth and a mouth that eats animals. When you’re a kid, plants are tall and magestic like redwood trees or yucchy like broccoli or benign like the grass you’re suppored to mow. Plants are not, in any way, supposed to have a mouth and teeth and be able to eat living creatures. When you’re a kid, the first time you see a Venus flytrap slowly close its glistening jaws on a squirming ant seems might have felt like an encounter with an alien creature. As it turns out, the botanical worls is rich soil for speculative fiction. Here’s a review of Plants in Science Fiction by Octavia Cade at Strange Horizons:

Let’s start with creepy plants (“Botanical Tentacles in the Chthulucene” by Shelley Saguaro), because creepy plants are awesome and because there’s never any getting away from bloody Lovecraft, it seems, so let’s get shot of him first. Saguaro points out that “Tentacles are most often attributes of animal species, from giant squids and octopuses to microscopic flagellates and ciliates” (p. 56). Transplanting this animal imagery onto plants, then, gives a monstrous hybrid of a creature, one neither fully plant or animal, a creature defined by its boundary-crossing nature. Looking closely at plant tentacles in the works of H. P. Lovecraft, John Wyndham, and John Boyd, Saguaro comments that these “(frightened) men” (p. 73) were looking to navigate a world that increasingly did not centre them. While plant tentacles can represent the threat of a hybrid other, however—and it’s no coincidence that these creatures are often sourced from regions that white men such as the authors were trying to colonise—they can also be interpreted as a “liberating multi-species” flowering that encourages more diverse relationships and ways of living.

Learn more!

Back in December, engineers at Northwestern University successfully demonstrated quantum teleportation over a fiber optic cable already carrying Internet traffic. Check out the study published in Optica.

Only limited by the speed of light, quantum teleportation enables a new, ultra-fast, secure way to share information between distant network users, wherein direct transmission is not necessary. The process works by harnessing quantum entanglement, a technique in which two particles are linked, regardless of the distance between them. Instead of particles physically traveling to deliver information, entangled particles exchange information over great distances — without physically carrying it.

Maybe you never saw the 1982 movie TRON. Maybe you’d only ever seen the remake or maybe not even that because you heard that except for the Daft Punk sound track it wasn’t that good. But maybe you’ve stood inside the legendary TRON arcade game The Discs of TRON, the black light transforming you into a digital creature. Maybe you loved the sound of identity discs banking off glowing blue walls and maybe you felt your stomach fall as your avatar tumbled from the last reamining circular platform, derezzing into the microprocessor void, another victim fo the Master Control Program. Maybe when you finally saw the 1982 masterpiece its unique blend of computer generated images, blacklight animation, genre-defining production design, and live-action convincing abdolutely blew your mind. And maybe you knew in your meatworld bones that if you could ever venture inside TRON you’d absolutely rule at those lightcycles. Here’s an exploration of how the unique 1982 marvel was made, from The Guardian:

Tron’s distinctive glowing circuitry was achieved through a technique called backlight animation, which involves making a negative of each frame and hand-painting the glowing areas. There were 75,000 frames to do; more than half a million pieces of artwork. Nobody knew how it would come together until the last minute, and reshoots were virtually impossible.

Tron’s CGI elements were an entirely separate process. Computer graphics had been used in movies before Tron, but only in brief snippets. In 1973’s Westworld there is a clip of a robot’s-eye pixellated view, for example. Star Wars and Alien both feature 3D wireframe graphics projected on screens. Only a few companies could produce such images, each of which had their own room-sized computer and their own custom-built software. The process was still cumbersome. “We had to figure out how to position and render objects 24 times to make one second of perceived movement on the screen,” says Bill Kroyer, Tron’s head of computer animation. Tron’s animators had to map out the CGI scenes on graph paper, then calculate the coordinates and angles for each element in each frame. Computer engineers would then input all the numbers manually. And there was no way of seeing the results until the images were printed on to 35mm film and projected in the theatre.

Learn more!

For Star Wars Day build a Mandalorian Darksaber. This is a fully 3D printed prop that was designed by the Ruiz Brothers into a DIY kit that you can build yourself with electronics from Adafruit. It’s built to be durable so you can throw some heavy swings for those intense photo shoots. All of the electronics are hidden inside the hilt and it features motion activated lights and sound. Features a Adafruit Feather nRF52840 Express and Adafruit Prop-Maker FeatherWing

See the full build!

Get started on on your next Star Wars Project with our May the 4th Be With You Guide

@SenorMasPR shared this post on X (formerly twitter)

@PearsonRanchMS CompSci students in @RoundRockISD completed Inchworm Robots today using @adafruit Circuit Playgrounds & @MSMakeCode! A super fun but challenging project combining technology, creativity, coding, & engineering to design fun AND functional robots #steam #robot

NASA shares how astronomers used the Chandra X-ray Observatory and radio telescopes to explain a fracture in a huge cosmic “bone” in the Milky Way galaxy.

The bone appears to have been struck by a fast-moving, rapidly spinning neutron star, or pulsar. Neutron stars are the densest known stars and form from the collapse and explosion of massive stars. They often receive a powerful kick from these explosions, sending them away from the explosion’s location at high speeds.

The public domain is filled with celestial treasures, even in the most unexpected ways. boing boing shares how we always looked up.

“Flowers of the Sky” is a stunning collection of celestial art throughout the ages from the Public Domain Review. The artwork in this collection covers nearly a millennium of illustrations (chronologically) depicting comets, meteors, meteorites, and shooting stars. The earliest work in the collection is a shooting star, drawn in what looks to be pen and ink, from 1493. The latest is a surrealistic painting of space with a skull and large heads floating in the sky from 1910.

Shared by Rudi on Printables:

A versatile modular holder designed for dusters or other cylindrical objects that fit within its rings. The system is fully expandable, allowing you to add as many rings as needed. For a standard duster, a setup with two rings and one end piece typically works well.

A nice way to stack away your dusters into a cabinet, or similar.

Download the files and learn more

Every Thursday is #3dthursday here at Adafruit! The DIY 3D printing community has passion and dedication for making solid objects from digital models. Recently, we have noticed electronics projects integrated with 3D printed enclosures, brackets, and sculptures, so each Thursday we celebrate and highlight these bold pioneers!

Have you considered building a 3D project around an Arduino or other microcontroller? How about printing a bracket to mount your Raspberry Pi to the back of your HD monitor? And don’t forget the countless LED projects that are possible when you are modeling your projects in 3D!

creadesign_2987224 shares:

This lamp works with an LED strip of at least 1 meter. Choose a flexible LED strip so it can easily follow the lamp’s shape. Also, select an LED strip with a high LED density for a more satisfying result.

download the files on: https://www.printables.com/model/1207350-bedside-lamp

Every Thursday is #3dthursday here at Adafruit! The DIY 3D printing community has passion and dedication for making solid objects from digital models. Recently, we have noticed electronics projects integrated with 3D printed enclosures, brackets, and sculptures, so each Thursday we celebrate and highlight these bold pioneers!

Have you considered building a 3D project around an Arduino or other microcontroller? How about printing a bracket to mount your Raspberry Pi to the back of your HD monitor? And don’t forget the countless LED projects that are possible when you are modeling your projects in 3D!

LIVE CHAT IS HERE! http://adafru.it/discord

Adafruit on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/adafruit

Shop for parts to build your own DIY projects http://adafru.it/3dprinting

3D Printing Projects Playlist:

3D Hangout Show Playlist:

Layer by Layer CAD Tutorials Playlist:

Timelapse Tuesday Playlist:

Connect with Noe and Pedro on Social Media:

Noe’s Twitter / Instagram: http://instagram.com/ecken

Pedro’s Twitter / Instagram: http://instagram.com/videopixil

Shared by Guy Sheffer on Printables:

I needed this because I have 9V center positive cables and lots of music gear needs center negative, so I made an converter, you can use this to make a DC – DC anything, female-female male – male etc.

Download the files and learn more

Every Thursday is #3dthursday here at Adafruit! The DIY 3D printing community has passion and dedication for making solid objects from digital models. Recently, we have noticed electronics projects integrated with 3D printed enclosures, brackets, and sculptures, so each Thursday we celebrate and highlight these bold pioneers!

Have you considered building a 3D project around an Arduino or other microcontroller? How about printing a bracket to mount your Raspberry Pi to the back of your HD monitor? And don’t forget the countless LED projects that are possible when you are modeling your projects in 3D!

Treverse_2258907 shares:

This pinhole camera takes 5″ by 7″ black and white photos (12.7cm by 17.8cm). The design has no electronics or lenses. The design does require a small amount of aluminum foil for the pinhole.

download the files on: https://www.printables.com/model/1207826-pinhole-camera

Every Thursday is #3dthursday here at Adafruit! The DIY 3D printing community has passion and dedication for making solid objects from digital models. Recently, we have noticed electronics projects integrated with 3D printed enclosures, brackets, and sculptures, so each Thursday we celebrate and highlight these bold pioneers!

Have you considered building a 3D project around an Arduino or other microcontroller? How about printing a bracket to mount your Raspberry Pi to the back of your HD monitor? And don’t forget the countless LED projects that are possible when you are modeling your projects in 3D!

LIVE CHAT IS HERE! http://adafru.it/discord

Adafruit on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/adafruit

Shop for parts to build your own DIY projects http://adafru.it/3dprinting

3D Printing Projects Playlist:

3D Hangout Show Playlist:

Layer by Layer CAD Tutorials Playlist:

Timelapse Tuesday Playlist:

Connect with Noe and Pedro on Social Media:

Noe’s Twitter / Instagram: http://instagram.com/ecken

Pedro’s Twitter / Instagram: http://instagram.com/videopixil

It’s JOHN PARK’S WORKSHOP — LIVE! — Coming up at 4pm ET / 1pm PT Today!  LIVE TEXT CHAT IS HERE in the Adafruit Discord chat!

Today’s Project: PICO-8  Wall Arcade Mounted!

The live video will be on Youtube LIVE, Twitch, Periscope (Twitter) and Facebook.

Join maker John Park in his workshop each week as he builds, demos, hacks, and mods projects live on air! “John Park’s Workshop — LIVE” is the place to see creative projects come to life, as John uses a wide variety of tools and techniques to make everything from video game controllers to synthesizer to drink robots, using digital fabrication, hand and power tools, microcontrollers, and more. Come on into the chat to participate in the fun! Every Thursday @ 4pm ET/1pm PT!