To make things easy, let's assume the hourglass timer will be used with the Circuit Playground facing up. The NeoPixels are on that side, so this makes sense. It also let's us use the Z axis of the accelerometer to detect when the Circuit Playground is flipped over. If you want more info on the accelerometer, see the this guide.
The figure below shows a time history of the value returned from cpx.acceleration[2] with the Circuit Playground facing up and down.
The value of 9.8 m/s2 relates to earth gravity. With the Circuit Playground facing up, it is a positive value. With the Circuit Playground facing down, it is a negative value. So we can detect a flip by simply checking the sign of the value.
We start with the Circuit Playground face up and a positive value. The first step is to wait for the value to become negative. Then, once it is negative, we wait for it to become positive again. That's a flip!
Here's a simple sketch that demonstrates this logic being used to detect a flip and then play a tone.
# Circuit Playground Express Flip Detect
#
# Author: Carter Nelson
# MIT License (https://opensource.org/licenses/MIT)
import time
from adafruit_circuitplayground.express import cpx
while True:
# Wait for Circuit Playground to be flipped over (face down)
while cpx.acceleration[2] > 0:
pass # do nothing
# A little debounce
time.sleep(0.5)
# Wait for Circuit Playground to be flipped back over (face up)
while cpx.acceleration[2] < 0:
pass # do nothing
# Make a beep noise.
cpx.play_tone(800, 1)
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