With a wave of your hand, a robot obeys your command!

This project will take a Circuit Playground Express based robot such as the CRICKIT Snake Bot or Crickit Carnival Bumper Bot and add wireless hand gesture control with the built in Infrared.

We'll be using CircuitPython for this project. Are you new to using CircuitPython? No worries, there is a full getting started guide here.

Adafruit suggests using the Mu editor to edit your code and have an interactive REPL in CircuitPython. You can learn about Mu and its installation in this tutorial.

We'll be making use of the IR transmit and receive capabilities of the Circuit Playground Express to send commands from the controller to the robot.  We have a guide that covers working with Circuit Playground Express IR in detail. There are other project guides that make use of it such as the Treasure Hunt and Zombie games.

Parts

You'll need two Circuit Playground Expresses - one on your hand and one for your robot
2 x Circuit Playground Express
Circuit Playground Express is the next step towards a perfect introduction to electronics and programming. Packed with sensors and programmable with MakeCode, CircuitPython, and Arduino.
1 x 500 mAh LiPo Battery
Or some other small LiPo battery that you can slip into the palm of the glove.
1 x LiPo charger
Keep your robot under control by keeping your controller battery charged.

1 x A Circuit Playground Express based robot such as the CRICKIT Snake Bot or Crickit Carnival Bumper Bot.

Tools and Supplies

A glove onto which you can sew a Circuit Playground Express.

Sewing supplies: needle, thread, scissors. Alternatively you could use self-adhesive Velcro.

This guide was first published on Aug 08, 2018. It was last updated on Mar 18, 2024.

This page (Overview) was last updated on Mar 08, 2024.

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