There are only a few things to wire up since we are using the MPR121 shield. First, you will need to solder the headers to the MPR121 shield. If you need help learning how to solder, check out our soldering guide. You can use male headers or shield stacking headers if you have some handy.

Next, you will need to add two male header pins to ADDR and IRQ pins on the top of the MPR121 shield. Make sure the long portion the pins are facing up as shown in the picture below.

Use a female/male jumper cable to connect the MPR121 IRQ pin to digital pin 4.

Next, grab your strip of 16 NeoPixels and solder three lengths of wire to the 5V, DIN, and GND pins on the NeoPixels. If you are using two NeoPixel sticks, you will also need to solder them together. If you are using a strip of NeoPixels, you can cut a strip of 16 NeoPixels for use with this project.

Seat the MPR121 shield on top of the Leonardo, and attach the NeoPixel 5V and GND wires to the 5V and GND pins on the MPR121 shield. Attach the NeoPixel DIN wire to digital pin 6 on the MPR121 shield.

Use alligator clips to connect pads 0-5 on the MPR121 shield to fruit, metal, or anything else that is electrically conductive. In the example below, I'm using copper tape.

Next, we will look at the uploading the code to the Leonardo.