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CircuitPython Weekly Meeting for August 29, 2022

Video is available on YouTube.

Join here for the chat all week: http://adafru.it/discord.

The CircuitPython Weekly happens normally at 2pm ET/11am PT on Mondays. Check the #circuitpython channel on Discord for notices of change in time and links to past meetings. Meeting times are also available in iCal format for use with standard calendar applications and can also be viewed in your browser.

If you want to be able to participate in the meeting by speaking, you will need to be added to the @circuitpythonistas role on Discord. Please ask any one of the moderators or admins to add you if you’d like to join.

CircuitPython development is sponsored by Adafruit. Please support them by purchasing hardware from https://adafruit.com.

Reminders: Podcast available on most services. Let us know if we’re missing some.

Community News

03:10 Check Out the Simulator in the beta micro:bit Python Editor

A simulator is now available within the beta micro:bit Python Editor. This allows you to try your code before sending it to a micro:bit. The developers are fine tuning it over the next few weeks, so send them your feedback to help make it even better - micro:bit newsletter

03:43 The MicroPython Forum Migration to GitHub Discussions

After close to 9 years, the MicroPython team has decided to close their forum in favor of moving to GitHub Discussions - MicroPython Forum Post and GitHub Discussions.

04:11 PyBricks - Python for LEGO

Pybricks is Python coding for smart LEGO® hubs. Run MicroPython scripts directly on the hub, and get full control of your motors and sensors. Pybricks runs on LEGO® BOOST, City, Technic, MINDSTORMS®, and SPIKE®. You can code using Windows, Mac, Linux, Chromebook, and Android. MIT License Open Source - PyBricks.

04:45 VSCode Upload to via the New CircuitPython 8 Web Workflow

Luke Williams is working on a task definition and Python script to upload from VS Code to CircuitPython board via web workflow REST API. It's a work in progress at this time. It shows how leveraging new features in CircuitPython 8 can help development - GitHub.

05:30 Thonny Version 4.0.0

Thonny 4.0.0 has emerged from beta with many changes and fixes. A main change is they dropped support for Python 3.5, 3.6 and 3.7. There are about two dozen changes for MicroPython and CircuitPython - GitHub.

05:56 WipperSnapper Custom Component Visualizations

Adafruit has introduced some new gorgeous default WipperSnapper component visualizations and the ability for users to customize them - Adafruit IO Blog.

  • Custom Labels
  • Custom Icons
  • Component Contributors Can Set Their Default Visualizations
  • I2C Sensors Display Their Appropriate SI Units There are some new sensor types too - Adafruit Blog.

06:38 Dragon frame clock

with a Pimoroni HyperPixel round display and Raspberry Pi Zero W with Python - Twitter.

07:17 Newsletter Details

The CircuitPython Weekly Newsletter is a CircuitPython community-run newsletter emailed every Tuesday. The complete archives are here. It highlights the latest Python on hardware related news from around the web including CircuitPython, Python and MicroPython developments. To contribute your own news or project, edit next week's draft on GitHub and submit a pull request with the changes. You may also tag a tweet with #CircuitPython on Twitter, or email cpnews@adafruit.com.

08:10 State of CircuitPython, Libraries and Blinka

Overall

  • 68 pull requests merged
    • 15 authors - makermelissa, caternuson, sokratisvas, jepler, tcfranks, vladak, dhalbert, rshah713, tekktrik, Neradoc, DavePutz, Sheng2216, bablokb, sgbaird, maximkulkin
    • 13 reviewers - makermelissa, caternuson, jepler, TheKitty, MicroDev1, kattni, FoamyGuy, dhalbert, gamblor21, tekktrik, Neradoc, ladyada, brentru
  • 68 closed issues by 18 people, 25 opened by 17 people

09:40 Core

11:27 Libraries

13:45 Blinka

14:24 Hug reports

@foamyguy (hosting)

  • Liz for publishing a guide that shows how to use Blinka_DisplayIO_PyGame_Display to make an IoT dashboard on an HDMI screen.
  • @PaulCutler for converting a fusion 360 file for me
  • Kmatch for providing Hack Tablets to giveaway as well as all of the folks who entered to receive one
  • @Tekktrik and @tammymakesthings for joining the discord moderator team
  • @KeithTheEE, @Tekktrik, @tammymakesthings, @PaulCutler, @deshipu, @MarkGamblor and @kattni for coordinating and organizing the “Office Hours” idea discussed in last week’s meeting.

16:08 @2231puppy

  • @kattni for the advice on whether or not to add my board to the CP repo
  • Group hug because this is by far the friendliest tech community I’m in!

16:29 @danh

  • @DavePutz for quickly fixing some PulseOut bugs
  • @jepler, @kattni, @deshipu for discussion of API for turning off status bar
  • @tlyu for finding a BLE regression in 7.x.x, doing testing to narrow the problem down and then testing my proposed fix

17:23 @david.g (not speaking)

  • @Neradoc and @danh for helping me reporting potential issue with circup, bluetooth and lywsd03mmc
  • @danh again for helping me with firmware building on espressif

17:44 @jepler

  • Group hug
  • Hug in advance for Dan who’s going to help me plan & brainstorm when the pi cow stuff gets complicated (I don’t know much about sockets and ssl yet so it’s daunting for me)
  • Hugs to TammyMakesThings and Foamyguy for working on this new live discord event, I guess it’s called “office hours”

18:17 @kattni

  • @Neradoc for providing me with mdns CircuitPython code to try to work with
  • @Paul Cutler and @KeithTheEE for trying to help me with WiFi code (though I think I wanted it to do something it can’t)
  • @danh for troubleshooting deep sleep with me on the Feather ESP32 V2
  • @todbot for putting together send and receive examples using UDP for me
  • @tammymakesthings and @tekktrik for joining the Community Moderators team on Discord
  • Tammy for joining the CircuitPythonLibrarians review team!
  • Tammy and Tekktrik for agreeing to coordinate/host the CircuitPython Office Hours, and to everyone who has been involved in the planning discussion, as well as the folks who will be volunteering their time to help out
  • Group hug!

19:16 @keithTheEE (text only)

  • I was away last weekend from the end of Circuit Python Day through tuesday last week, so a belated hug to @tekktrik for organizing the code sprints, and to @TammyMakesThings, @deshipu, and @markGamblor, for participating and bouncing ideas off of
  • @kattni for helping to organize the CircuitPython Day, as well as @Paul Cutler for hosting,
  • @danh, @foamyguy and everyone involved in all of the facets of the day (I’m a week late and don’t have the sheet of names but hugs around)

19:52 @kmatch

  • @foamyguy for organizing and completing the HACKTablet drawing, for everyone that entered
  • @fury for discussions on optimizing the HACKtablet frame rates
  • The Espressif team for improving the ESP-IDF code and (especially) documentation for the RGB LCD peripheral

20:30 @makermelissa

  • @danh for reviewing my huge Pull Requests of new boards on CircuitPython.org
  • Group Hug

20:46 @mark(gamblor) [ text only likely ]

  • Group hug for everyone!

20:57 @Paul Cutler

  • The CircuitPython Show turns 6 months old on September 1st. Thank you everyone who has listened and supported the show!

21:13 @tammymakesthings

  • @foamyguy for hosting.
  • @kattni, @tekktrik, and everyone else working on the CircuitPython office hours proposal
  • @tekktrik for starting grad school - congrats!
  • Group hug!

21:38 @tekktrik (text only)

  • Everyone involved in getting the new CircuitPython office hours proposal going
  • Everyone in the community and development team - my first grad course is in microprocessors and embedded systems, something I never would have thought of taking a couple years ago.
  • Group hug!

22:10 Status Updates

22:40 @foamyguy (hosting)

  • Last week
    • Final HackTablet giveaway selection
    • PR Reviews and testing, LSM303 accelerometer and more
    • Applied some conditional logic to the mpy filesize measurement action
  • This week
    • Finish the 3d model enough to try a first print of the case for handheld PyPortal + JoyFeatherwing game device
    • Record and publish the next video in the Minecraft Feather RP2040 instructions playlist. This one covering loading the code.py onto the feather, initializing the USB serial connection, and setting up the pins.

24:28 @2231puppy

  • Last week
    • Finished up work on my digital fidget board, the E-Fidget
  • This week
    • Assemble the E-Fidget and test it!

24:59 @danh

  • About to release 7.3.3, which has several new and backported fixes.
  • Continuing to fix bugs for 8.0.0.
  • Implementing enabling/disabling the status bar on the console or the display.

26:17 @david.g (not speaking)

  • Checking boards that pretend to have a display on circuitpython.org, trying to find a “definition” (see In The Weeds)
  • New attempt at doing something useful with my temperature sensor (lywsd03mmc)
  • Followed the guide on compiling CP and successfully rebuilded QT-Py UF2
  • Lilygo T-Watch 2020 v3 (ESP32):

27:48 @jepler

  • Last week:
    • Not CircuitPython, but the updated qmk came out and has lots of rp2040 goodness
    • Tried to figure out the mystery of the esp32-eye flakiness but didn’t. Setting aside for now, as the esp32-s3 is the focus of camera activity
    • Got the pi-cow blinking its LED, which means communication with the wifi part is working!
    • New guide pages for camera stuff finished but not published yet
  • This week:
    • Picow all around
    • Out Tuesday

29:27 @kattni

  • Belated hug report to Melissa for finding the ESP32 V2 on circuitpython.org when the rest of us couldn’t
  • Belated hug report to DanH for giving me a build without the CircuitPython status bar enabled so I could continue working on my project, and for working on a way to disable it in code.
  • Last week:
    • Published the ESP32-S3 TFT Feather guide
    • Picked up the ESP32 V2 Feather and began digging into the various WiFi workflow options, intended for a guide on building a WiFi mailbox notifier
    • Found a bug with CircuitPython and Thonny where Thonny locks up when an exception is thrown by the code - turned out to be related to the status bar. Dan provided a CP build with the status bar disabled, and Thonny works as intended again.
    • Spent more time in the WiFi workflow, trying to get into a habit with it because the native USB workflow is so ingrained into me at this point.
    • Spent time looking into WiFi data sending options, narrowed it down to mDNS, HTTP, or UDP.
    • Sorted out working on two WiFi microcontrollers at the same time, using Thonny, and sorted out a way to identify which Feather is which.
    • Turns out I was meant to use Adafruit IO and only one Feather, so the WiFi data discussions are info in my brain for future projects.
    • Created working code that sends switch notifications and battery voltage to Adafruit IO.
    • Tested deep sleep, got excited because the PPK graph sure looked like I had deep sleep working until I zoomed in and found out it was still pulling light sleep numbers. Turns out it may be an issue with CircuitPython pulling all pins high (instead of the previous behavior which was to let them float) when going into deep sleep. Dan’s planning to take a look at it when he’s through with his current mission.
  • This week:
    • Start on the Mailbox Notifier guide.
    • Assume the deep sleep issue will be resolved.
    • Will be including the LoRa version of the mailbox notifier project alongside the WiFi version. I’m going to redo the existing code to work on two Feathers, but will still include the Pi code (without explanation) for folks who have extra Pis sitting around already.
    • Probably misc.

32:39 @kmatch

  • Bowling detector training aid
    • Last week: Proved that an ultrasonic sensor has the resolution and speed for capturing the distance to fast-moving spheres. Demonstrated the position indicator.
    • This week: Design and test the initial mechanical design. Improve the accuracy by smoothing the data and weeding out noise.

33:29 @makermelissa

  • Last week:
    • Submitted a huge PR to add about 15 missing CircuitPython and Blinka boards on circuitpython.org as well as go through and update some feature names on Blinka boards
    • Worked on code.circuitpython.org mostly.
    • I ended up reworking the File Dialog a bit in order to add Uploading, Downloading, and File/Folder renaming
    • I also added Dialog Layering so now over 4000 could be stacked up if needed and increasing this number would be trivial, but it likely will never be more than a few deep in practice.
    • Replaced the hterm component with xterm so it’s now compatible with Firefox
    • Lots of small misc bug fixes.
    • Added a bug fix to the circuitpython core to add some missing Web Workflow acceptable CORS headers
    • Started working on adding Device Discovery
  • This week:
    • Continue working on Device Discovery
    • Work on feature to allow transferring work when jumping between devices
    • Add more File Dialog Features
    • Update some of the components that are starting to age
    • Smooth out the overall flow
    • Lots of testing and more bug fixes probably

35:11 @tammymakesthings

  • Last week:
    • Planning the first CircuitPython Office Hours
    • Respinning my CircuitPython build environment, which mysteriously seems to have broken on my MacBook
  • This week:
    • Finishing getting my build environment working again
    • PR reviews!
    • Learning how to use the Discord mod functions
    • Doing some research into audio processing generally and also with CircuitPython, because I have a project idea (guitar effects pedal for my ukulele in CircuitPython) and I want to figure out if it’s feasible.
  • Non-CircuitPython
    • Built a not-to-scale prototype of a tensegrity table out of popsicle sticks. Refining my design and going to build another scale prototype (or maybe 2) and ultimately want to construct a full-sized tensegrity coffee table from wood and steel cables or ropes.

36:41 @tekktrik (text only)

  • Last week
    • Fix multiple WiFi network connectivity issue with PortalBase library
    • Removed LSM303 library from the bundle
    • Added GUVX_I2C library to the Adafruit bundle
    • Made RTD documentation use a range of years (up to current) for copyright attribution
    • Reviewed A LOT of type annotation PRs
    • Proposed a few cookiecutter and adabot patches/updates
  • This week
    • Finish up the cookiecutter PR
    • Run the adabot patches proposed once they’re approved
    • Propose a few more patches needed for the libraries
    • Fix up a few new libraries before adding them to the Adafruit bundle
    • Also starting grad school classes this week!

37:53 In The Weeds

38:26 @tammymakesthings - The first of the new CircuitPython Office Hours will be happening on 10 September! Possible hours are 8-10AM ET. Office Hours will be on Discord using Discord Video. The video may be uploaded later to adafruit youtube, rather than streamed live. If you can volunteer to be present and answer questions, please get in touch with tammy or @tekktrik, or join the planning thread in #circutpython-dev

40:48 @david.g (text only) - What is or is not a “Display” in CircuitPython.org? (trying to resolve issue #1032 and PR #1030 #1029 and #1028 from https://github.com/adafruit/circuitpython-org ) Brainstorming questions (maybe check the picture):

48:30 Wrap-Up

Next meeting is Tuesday September 6, 2022, 24 hours later than usual, in recognition of a US holiday. It occurs at the normal time of 2PM ET / 11AM PT