In this project, Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) is used to have a Feather nRF52840 and Circuit Playground Bluefruit communicate with each other to create a wireless 8-bit music synthesizer. The Feather has 12 buttons attached to its I/O pins. Each time a button is pressed, it sends a BLE packet to the Circuit Playground Bluefruit. When the Circuit Playground Bluefruit receives those packets, it swirls its on-board NeoPixels in a specific color and plays a tone.

The Bluefruit Playground App

This project was inspired by the tone example in the Bluefruit Playground App. With the app, you may connect your Circuit Playground Bluefruit board to your iOS device and then play with a series of examples, each with a user interface to allowing control of the Circuit Playground Bluefruit sensors.

One of those examples has a piano keyboard in the app and when the keys are pressed, they cause a tone to play from the Circuit Playground Bluefruit. I thought it would be cool to recreate this concept with hardware.

Project Video

Parts

Angled shot of a Adafruit Feather nRF52840 Express.
The Adafruit Feather nRF52840 Express is the new Feather family member with Bluetooth Low Energy and native USB support featuring the nRF52840!  It's...
$24.95
In Stock
shot of a Black woman's neon-green manicured hand holding up a Circuit Playground Bluefruit glowing rainbow LEDs.
Circuit Playground Bluefruit is our third board in the Circuit Playground series, another step towards a perfect introduction to electronics and programming. We've...
$24.95
In Stock
Top view of a black speaker breakout board connected to a round microcontroller via alligator clips. A music note animation emits from the speaker.
Hey, have you heard the good news? With Adafruit STEMMA boards you can easily and safely plug sensors and devices together, like this Adafruit STEMMA Speaker - Plug and Play...
$5.95
In Stock
Top-down shot of 15 colorful round tactile button switches in green, yellow, red, blue, and white.
Little clicky switches are standard input "buttons" on electronic projects. These work best in a PCB but can be...
$5.95
In Stock
Front angled shot of 3 x AAA battery holder with on-off switch and 2-pin JST PH connector.
This battery holder connects 3 AAA batteries together in series for powering all kinds of projects. We spec'd these out because the box is slim, and 3 AAA's add up to about...
$1.95
In Stock
1 x Perfboard Plates
Bakelite, universal, pack of 10
1 x Slide Switch
SPDT - breadboard friendly
1 x Short Female Headers for Feather
One 12-pin and one 16-pin

Helpful Tools

Very strong looking scissors with comfy grip
Save your scissors! Instead of using your nice shears (and dulling them) or wire cutters (not right for the job) - use these super scissors. They're meant for engineering/maker...
$14.95
In Stock

This guide was first published on Feb 07, 2020. It was last updated on Feb 07, 2020.

This page (Overview) was last updated on Feb 03, 2020.

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