Do you have an old lamp laying around? Maybe your favorite lamp could use an upgrade! In this guide, you will learn how to take your Circuit Playground Express and use Circuit Python to make an interactive, colorful lamp. We've chosen two Ikea lamps, SPOKA and SJOPENNA, for this project. However, this concept will work with any lamp that you can fit a Circuit Playground Express into and connect it to USB power.

We wanted this project to be as interactive as possible, and that requires some special CircuitPython code. This guide is packed with really cool coding concepts, including a little bit of math. You'll find out different ways to use time. You'll learn how to code different interactions to work together by using generators. You'll discover how to keep repetitive code efficient by using a dictionary. Finally, you'll make an input require multiple steps by creating a state machine.

Let's get started!

First Things First

The first thing you'll want to do is get your Circuit Playground Express and your computer ready to follow along in the guide. If you're completely new to CircuitPython, checkout the Welcome to CircuitPython guide before continuing.

You'll want to make sure your CPX is updated to the most recent version of CircuitPython. Take a look at Installing CircuitPython to get updated if you need to.

CircuitPython code relies on libraries to function. The code in this project will not work without the correct libraries installed! Take a look at CircuitPython Libraries to learn about Installing the CircuitPython Library Bundle.

You'll be writing and editing code through this guide. So, you'll want to choose an editor. You can use any plain-text editor, but code editors make everything much simpler. There are many options. We recommend Mu editor as it is a code editor and serial console all in one! Check out Installing Mu Editor to get that going. You may want to check out Creating and Editing Code if you haven't worked with Mu or CircuitPython code before.

You'll be making significant use of the serial console and REPL. Before getting started, you'll want to make sure you have your serial connection setup. If you're using Mu Editor, you're all set to go already! Check out Connecting to the Serial Console to see how to use the REPL within Mu Editor. If you're using a different editor, you'll want to check out Advanced Serial Console on Windows and Advanced Serial Console on Mac and Linux to get connected. Once connected, take a look at Interacting with the Serial Console and The REPL to get a feel for both.

This guide assumes that you've completed these steps. If you reach a point in the guide where you realise you may have missed one, refer back to this page to get things taken care of and then continue.

Things You'll Need For This Project

We'll be showing off two mods with lamps we got at our local IKEA but you don't have to use these lamps. They work fantastically but other lamps you may already own could also work well. Also, check out your local thrift/antique store for funky finds.

SPOKA Lamp

Our little creature friend Spoka seems to have been made for Circuit Playground Express. The outside casing is stretchy silicone. The inside is a hard plastic self-contained housing with the electronics for the lamp. If your lamp is plugged in, unplug it first. Then, follow the steps below.

SJOPENNA Lamp

The raised part of the base of the geometrical Sjopenna is a perfect place to attach your Circuit Playground Express.

Sugru It To It!

Every programmer in every language, sometime early in their learning, has written a program called "Hello world!" that prints exactly that. The idea behind it is it's an excellent introduction to the language and programming environment. In CircuitPython, our Hello World! is also known as Blink. Every CircuitPython compatible board has a little red LED on it, and you can use a simple program to make it blink. After all, making things blink is great!

Here is what the basic Blink looks like on the Circuit Playground Express. Try loading it on your board to see what happens!

The little red LED is True when it's on, and False when it's off. This code cycles back and forth between the LED being on for 0.5 seconds and off for 0.5 seconds.

For this project, we will be using the built in NeoPixels. So, for this example, we've written a version of Blink that uses the first NeoPixel instead. However, setting a NeoPixel to a color is not a True or False situation. We're setting it to a color which is done using a tuple in (Red, Green, Blue) format. Cycling back and forth here involves cycling between red which is (255, 0, 0) and off which is (0, 0, 0). So, to do this, we're going to need to do a little math.

Absolute Value

The absolute value of a number can be thought of as that number's distance from zero. For example, the absolute value of 255 is 255. The absolute value of -255 is also 255, because even though it's a negative number, it is still 255 away from zero. To obtain the absolute value of a number using CircuitPython, you use abs(). You can get the absolute value of a single number or you can get the absolute value result of an equation. Try typing different numbers into your REPL to see the results. For example:

-255 and 0 - 255 are both equal to -255, however, as you can see, the absolute value of both is 255.

What does this have to do with blinking our NeoPixel? We're going to use abs() in our Blink code to cycle between 255 and 0. This will allow us to cycle back and forth between red and off. Since we're only changing one number in the (R, G, B) tuple, our NeoPixel Blink code looks like this:

This cycles between cpx.pixels[0] = (255, 0, 0) and cpx.pixels[0] = (0, 0, 0). Load it on your Circuit Playground Express and see the difference!

Next, we're going to use this example to learn a new concept!

There are many situations where you'll want an event in your code to continue for an amount of time. Often, this is accomplished using time.sleep() as in the following code:

Here, the first NeoPixel turns on for 0.5 seconds, and then turns off for 0.5 seconds before repeating indefinitely. The usage of time.sleep(0.5) in this code basically says: turn the LED on and wait in that state for half a second, then turn it off and wait in that state for half a second. In many situations, this usage of time works great. However, during time.sleep(), the code is essentially paused. Therefore, the board cannot accept any other inputs or perform any other functions for that period of time. This type of code is referred to as being blocking. In the case of the code above, this is sufficient as the code is not attempting to do anything else during that time.

Waiting Without Blocking

However, for this project, we want to continue processing inputs, so instead of sleeping for 0.5 seconds, we'll process other inputs for 0.5 seconds and change the led when that time expires. To accomplish this, we're going to use time.monotonic(). Where time.sleep() expects an amount of time be provided, time.monotonic() tells us what time it is now, so we can see whether our 0.5 seconds has passed yet. So, we no longer supply an amount of time. Instead, we assign time.monotonic() to two different variables at two different points in the code, and then compare the results.

At any given point in time, time.monotonic() is equal to the number seconds since your board was last power-cycled. (The soft-reboot that occurs with the auto-reload when you save changes to your CircuitPython code, or enter and exit the REPL, does not start it over.) When it is called, it returns a number with a decimal, which is called a float. If, for example, you assign time.monotonic() to a variable, and then call it again to assign into a different variable, each variable is equal to the number of seconds that time.monotonic() was equal to at the time the variables were assigned. You can then subtract the first variable from the second to obtain the amount of time that passed.

time.monotonic() example

Let's take a look at an example. You can type the following into the REPL to follow along.

First we import the time module, then we print the current time.monotonic(). This is to give you an idea of what is going on in the background. The next two lines assign x = time.monotonic() and y = time.monotonic() so we have two variables, and points in time, to compare. Then we print(y - x). This gives us the amount of time, in seconds, that passed between assigning time.monotonic() to x and y. We print time.monotonic() again to give you a general idea of the difference. Remember, the two numbers resulting from printing the current time are not exactly the same difference from each other as the two variables due to the amount of time it took to assign the variables and print the results.

Non-Blocking Blink

But, how does this allow us to blink our NeoPixel? The result of the comparison is a period of time. So, if we use that period of time to determine when the state of the LED should change, we can successfully blink the LED in the same way we did in the first program. Let's find out what that looks like!

This does exactly the same thing as before! It's exactly what we wanted. Now, let's break it down.

Before the loop begins, we create a blink_speed variable and set it to 0.5. This allows for easier configuration of the blink speed later if you wanted to alter it. Next, we set the initial state of the LED to be (0, 0, 0), or off. Then, we call time.monotonic() for the first time by setting initial_time = time.monotonic(). This applies once when the program begins, before it enters the loop.

Once the code enters the loop, we set current_time = time.monotonic(). We call it a second time to compare to the first, to see if enough time has passed. Then we say if current_time minus initial_time is greater than blink_speed, do two things: set initial_time to now be equal to current_time and cycle the NeoPixel to the next state. Setting initial_time = current_time means it starts the time period over again. Essentially, every time the difference reaches 0.5 seconds, it cycles the state and starts again, repeating indefinitely.

Why would we do it this way? It seems way more complicated! We do it this way because this allows us to do other things while the NeoPixel is blinking. Instead of pausing the code to leave the LED in a red or off state, the code continues to run. The code for the Spoka lamp allows you to change speed and brightness without halting the rainbow animation, and this is how we accomplish that!

Let's keep adding tools that we can use to make this lamp really awesome. Non-blocking waiting is going to be helpful. Another useful concept we'll lean on later is using python dictionaries.

You will often find yourself writing code that seems repetitive. You may have a number of lines of code that are a series of similar elements using if and elif statements. Let's take a look at an example.

In this example, we are changing the colors of the NeoPixels using the capacitive touch pads. Each touch pad changes it to a different color, and the last touch pad turns them off.

This code seems really repetitive though. The difference between the if and elif statements is which touch pad, and the difference between the color statements is the color. Is there another way to do this? Yes! We're going to use a dictionary.

The CircuitPython Dictionary

A dictionary maps a set of objects, called keys, to another set of objects, called values. These are expressed in key: value pairs. Within a single dictionary, each key must be unique. A dictionary can contain all different types of information. Dictionaries have a name and the information is contained within {} brackets.

For our dictionary, we're going to pair a string with a tuple. Our string will be the names of the different touch pads, and the tuple will be the associated (r, g, b) color value.  Let's take a look what our code looks like with a dictionary for our data.

We've named our dictionary touchpad_to_color. Our keys are strings with the touch pad names. Our values are the colors we chose to associate with each touch pad. For example, the first key: value pair is "touch_A1": (255, 0, 0). Note that the "touch_A1" including the quotation marks is the string, and as a whole is the key. Now that we have our dictionary, we can use it in our code.

Our loop starts with for touchpad in touchpad_to_color:. This line ensures that the code only applies if the key is found within the dictionary. Otherwise, you'll get a KeyError if you try to apply a key that isn't found! This check avoids that. The key thing to know is that for key in dictionary steps over all the keys. So not only does it ensure the key is found, it ensures the entire dictionary is utilised. Then with our if statement we say, if a key touch pad has been touched, use the paired value to fill the NeoPixels the associated color.

We went from seven if and elif statements to one if statement. We add some data but we save a lot of code in our loop. Data is easier to manipulate than code. So, in the event we wanted to add more touch pads to our dictionary, we add only one line of data into our dictionary for every two lines of code we would have had to add without it!

Our little creature friend is a great opportunity for rainbow lighting. The rainbow code is often referred to as "rainbow_cycle" for a reason: it is exactly that, a cycle that starts with red, then orange, yellow, green, blue, violet and back to red.

Normally, this cycle must complete before the board can continue to look for inputs. At this point, you must either pause the cycle to wait for input or time the input to happen exactly between cycles. Basically, the rainbow_cycle is blocking - just like we saw with time.sleep().

This won't work for us! Why? Because rainbows are great! We don't want them to stop while we're doing other things. We want to be able to change the brightness and speed of the rainbow without waiting for the cycle to complete.

Generators to the rescue!

To do this, we're going to use something called a generator. A generator function contains a yield statement. You can call next on a generator and with every call, it returns a value until it has returned all possible values. The great thing about generators is that they save the state when they yield so we can get right back to where we were, as though we never left. This is important for us because we want our cycle to continue while we process other things.

In this example, we're going to combine time.monotonic() and dictionaries with the new generators that we're about to learn!

But first, a quick explanation of how we're getting our colors.

colorwheel (or wheel) Explained

You have probably come across this code in a number of situations. It's in much of the code that has a rainbow cycle option, and is included in the demos that ship on many of the CircuitPython compatible boards. But how does it work?

The wheel code is a function that uses math to allow a single number to represent the (r, g, b) tuple that usually represents pixel colors. If you wanted to turn your LEDs red, you'd usually use cpx.pixels.fill((255, 0, 0)). However, with wheel, if you include the function at the top of your program, you can use cpx.pixels.fill(wheel(0)).

Here is what wheel looks like graphed out. The x-axis is the number you provide, and the y-axis indicates, based on the color lines, what tuple will be returned. As you can see, if you provide wheel(112), it returns the (R, G, B) tuple (0, 174, 81).

Now, if all you're doing is using solid colors, it doesn't make much sense to use wheel, because it adds a lot to your code. However, if you want to do a rainbow cycle, wheel is the answer. The typical rainbow cycle uses fancy math code to give wheel a sequence of numbers from 0 to 255, to iterate through all the possible colors from red, to green to blue, and back to red again. The rainbow cycle code is designed to continuously do this. So, even though it's only displaying a single color at any given point in time, when it's viewed altogether, it appears to be a beautiful rainbow!

This is important to know because, in our generator code, we're going to use wheel to create our rainbow cycle mode, but we're also going to use it to create our individual single color modes. Now that we understand how wheel works, the list we use for our color mode sequence generator will make a lot more sense!

The next Step

Load the file on your CPX, and give it at try. It will start with a rainbow. If you double-tap your lamp, it will move to solid red. Double-tap once each to move to yellow, orange, green, cyan, blue and purple. Double-tap one more time to switch to party mode. In party mode, it's easiest to see the changes in speed. While in party mode, shake your lamp. The speed will slow down. Shake it again to slow it down even more. Shake it again, and it will speed up again.

Now let's find out how!

The Code!

We begin with imports and the wheel code.

Generators

First, we're going to first create a special generator, called cycle_sequence, that will allow our other generators to continuously cycle through their options.

We do this because we're going to have different modes that we would like to repeatedly cycle through. For example, there are two rainbow settings and seven solid colors available for a total of nine color modes. Every call to a generator returns a value until all possible values have been generated. Without cycle_sequence, we would get through the nine color modes and the code would stop. With this special generator, the code will allow us to return to the first mode and start again. It's super useful!

Now we can use it to create our rainbow generator, rainbow_lamp.

It is different than the others. It expects to be provided with a sequence, instead of having one to iterate through on its own. rainbow_lamp uses seq from cycle_sequence to iterate through the sequence. The sequence we will provide it is contained within the next generator. We will use the next generator to provide the (pos) to wheel and create our different color modes.

The next two generators use cycle_sequence to iterate through a list of values. The first, color_sequences, is a list containing the different (pos) position values that will be provided to wheel.

The second generator, heart_rates, contains the speed of our modes in seconds.

To be clear, this is not the speed to cycle between modes - that will be done with user input. This is the speed of the rainbow and party modes. Solid colors do not care about speed, so while the speed exists during those modes, it does not affect them.

Note that color_sequences and heart_rates are not functions like rainbow_lamp, however they are still generators because they use cycle_sequence.

Time

Remember, we learned that when nothing else is going on, we can use time.sleep() to control speed, however, if we want to be able to process anything else, we need to use time.monotonic(). In this code, we want to be able to process inputs while the rainbow cycle is happening. We will be able to change the speed of the rainbow while the rainbow is going, without halting or resetting the rainbow cycle!

The next section is where we setup what we're going to use with time.monotonic().

We learned that time.monotonic() is all about comparisons, so here we setup the variables we'll be comparing. We set heart_rate = 0 for use later. Then we set last_heart_beat = time.monotonic() and next_heart_beat = last_heart_beat + heart_rate.

Variables

We need to assign a few more things before we get into our loop.

First, we assign rainbow = None for later use. Then, we set cpx.detect_taps = 2 so our code will use a double-tap for the cpx.tapped input. Last, we set cpx.pixels.brightness = 0.2 so the brightness will be low on startup. This way if your CPX resets in the middle of the night, it doesn't come back on super bright!

The Loop

We begin by setting now = time.monotonic() to keep track of current time.

Our first if statement has two options.

One, we double-tap the lamp, and two, rainbow is None. If you recall, we assigned rainbow = None before the loop. So this statement is effectively saying, "If you double-tap or on startup, do the following." So, if either one of these options are met, we assign rainbow = rainbow_lamp(next(color_sequences)). This is where we begin using our generators and is the first time we call next! Remember, rainbow_lamp expects a sequence, and we are providing it exactly. Each time you double tap, it calls for the next value in color_sequences, which contains the different color modes. And because we're using our special generator, when we reach the last mode, another double-tap will cycle back to the first mode!

Next, we're using shake as the input to change speeds.

Remember, the heart_rates generator provides the speeds. We assign heart_rate to call the next value in heart_rates. Then we use our time.monotonic() variables to check how much time has passed and set next_heart_beat = last_heart_beat + heart_rate. This is used in the last section of code to determine what speed is currently set and use it.

Our last section of code we are determining the speed at which we are calling next on rainbow. This is how we set the speed of each color mode. Remember, solid colors don't care about speed and simply aren't affected. This speed is important to the rainbow and party modes.

We check to see if now is greater than or equal to next_heart_beat (which we just set to be essentially now + heart_rate), and when it is, we call next on rainbow. This causes the rainbow cycle to move to the next (pos) in wheel. Lastly, we reset last_heart_beat and next_heart_beat so we can begin a new comparison, and continue on in our code!

Note:

Pylint ensures that code is written according to a particular standard. The pylint comments in the code are there because we chose not to follow the standard for part of our program, in order to keep the code as readable as possible. To learn more, checkout the Pylint documentation.

We want to use motion to change some settings on our little creature friend Spoka. In this case, we're going to use rotating the lamp to the left and to the right as two separate inputs. We plan to use shake as an input, so we need to make sure that our rotation motion isn't mistaken for a shake motion. There are various ways we could use orientation as a limiting factor, but many of them make using the actual input difficult and inconsistent. We want our lamp to work easily every time!

So, we're going to require a series of events to occur in a particular order for the input to be accepted.  How will we accomplish this? We're going to create a state machine.

State Machines

Put simply, a state machine looks for a series of inputs. When it reads an input, it changes state. Each step specifies the next state. When all of the required steps have been completed, in the correct order, it returns the desired result.

Consider purchasing a soda from a vending machine. First, you are required to insert the correct amount of money. If you only insert half, nothing happens. The correct input here is the full cost of the soda. Once you've inserted that, the next step is to choose which soda you want. The soda machine waits for this input before continuing. If you choose a cola, the machine will then proceed to dispense a cola. Once that is complete, the machine returns to it's original state: waiting for the correct amount of money to be inserted so it can repeat the steps once again.

How does this apply to code? If you would like to require a series of inputs in a certain order, instead of a single input, you'll want to create a state machine. For example, if you wanted to use rotating your Circuit Playground Express as an input, you could set it so any time it is rotated to the left, it recognises that as an input and spams the result anytime it's in that position. However, if you wanted to have it see rotating left as an input once, and require it be rotated back before allowing the left rotation input to work again, you'd need a state machine. That's what we're going to do!

The State of Spoka

The first thing we need to do is decide what we want our state machine to look like. First, we want our code to first require a rotation of approximately 90 degrees to the left or right of the upright position. Next, it should require the lamp to be held in that rotated state for one second. Last, it should require the lamp to be placed in either the opposite rotation state or the upright state before the next rotation input in the same direction can be started.

Here is a list of the steps for using the left rotation as an input:

1. Begin upright or rotated to the right.
2. Rotate 90 degrees to the left of the upright position.
3. Hold for one second.
4. Rotate upright or to the right.

The right rotation will be the same steps, with right swapped for left.

We'll start with the left rotation input. Here is what our code looks like. Download the file and load it on your CPX

Let's check this out! Connect to the REPL so you can view the print statements. Begin with the board flat, facing upright. You may see "Entering state 'upright'". Rotate the board 90 degrees to the left. You should see "Entering state 'left'". Hold for 1 second, or until you see "Entering state 'left-done'". Then rotate back to facing upright, and look for "Entering state 'upright'". Now you've used our state machine!

So let's take a look at the code.

Functions

First, we create the functions that define what "left" and "upright" mean.

To identify the orientation of the board, we're using the accelerometer. The accelerometer provides an (x, y, z) tuple, which is the acceleration value, in meters per second squared (m/s²), currently applied to the x, y and z axes. We can use this to determine what direction the board is pointing. When the board is flat with the front facing upright, acceleration returns (0, 0, 9.8). This is because there is 0 acceleration on the x and y axes, and 9.8m/s² (gravity!) on the z axis. So, the first function uses this information to tell the code that upright means when the board is flat and facing up. The same concept applies to left_side, with the values altered to match the values when the board is pointed to the left. As gravity is -9.8m/s², we take the absolute value of (x, y, z) using abs() to avoid dealing with negative numbers in our math.

Variables

Next, we create some variables for use later: state and hold_end. Then, we set hold_time to 1, and accel_threshold to 2.

hold_time is the amount of time you must hold the board in the rotated state to continue to the next step in the state machine. accel_threshold is the number used to determine how close to exactly-rotated you must have the board to activate the input. If the accel_threshold is 0, then it must be rotated to exactly the right spot to activate it. Experimentation led us to use 2, which provides a range for the orientation that successfully activates the input. If you find you're having trouble finding the correct angle to hold the board, you can increase this number. accel_threshold must be between 0 and 9.8. Be aware that the higher the number, the easier it is to activate the input, so you may mistakenly activate it if you set the number too high. At 9.8, any movement registers as a rotation. It is not recommended to set it that high.

The Loop

Next we begin our loop. The first thing we do is call and assign acceleration. Next, we begin our state machine. At any given point in time, the code is looking to see whether the board is pointing to the left_side or upright. Within that, we begin to use that information to work through the steps of our input.

If we rotate to the left side, it checks to make sure that the state is either None (as we assigned on startup), or doesn't start with "left".

If either one of these conditions is met, it assigns hold_end = time.monotonic() + hold_time, and the code enters the "left" state. This meaning hold_end is equal to the current time plus the hold_time and state = "left".

If neither of the first two conditions is true, it checks for three other conditions.

Is the state equal to "left", is hold_end not equal to None, and is the current time greater than or equal to hold_end. If all of these conditions is met, it begins to check whether or not the hold time has passed. Once it has, it enters the "left-done" state. At this point, we must return the lamp to the upright state to begin the left rotation part of our state machine again.

The last section checks to see if the board is upright.

If so, it checks to see if the state is not already upright before setting hold_end = None and state = "upright". The reason for verifying that the state is not already upright is to avoid spamming the upright position, since the lamp spends most of its time upright.

And now our state machine can begin again!

The Spoka lamp appears designed for Circuit Playground Express. The board fits perfectly into a groove in the bottom which holds it in place and the lamp is easy to hold in your hand. These things make it perfect for using motion to control it.

We're going to use three different inputs: double-tap, shake, and rotation. All three of these inputs are motion based and use the accelerometer. These inputs will control different modes, speeds, brightness and turning the lamp off.

We'll use:

• double-tap to change color modes
• rotate left to change brightness
• rotate right to change speeds
• and shake to turn the lamp off

The nine different modes that double-tap will cycle through are:

• a smooth rainbow cycle
• 7 different static solid colors
• and a cycle through the 7 solid colors (party mode!)

The speed changes we will code affect the speed of the cycle modes, and do not affect the solid colors.

As all three of these inputs are motion based and use the same sensor, under certain circumstances, one input can be mistaken for another. If this happens consistently, try performing one of the motions differently. For example, perhaps you are double-tapping the lamp while it is sitting on the table, but it is moving around enough that the shake input is triggering. In that case, try holding it in your hand and double-tapping it. The same goes for any input that is being triggered inadvertently. Identify which one it is and modify your motion to only trigger the input that you're actively trying to use.

What Worked and What Didn't

We planned ahead of time to use IR to control Sjopenna, and this proved to work perfectly. Our little creature friend Spoka, however, didn't have any specific plans to begin with, because we wanted to experiment with all the options to see what worked. So, the first thing we did was test different inputs.

The Circuit Playground Express fits snugly into the bottom of Spoka and mostly covers the capacitive touch pads. We tried adding a strip of copper tape to the side that would make contact with one of the pads, but the tape didn't stick to the surface. The lamp itself is not at all conductive so sensing touch through the lamp itself was out. We tried using the sound sensor to have it respond to loud noises, however, the CPX is sealed enough into the lamp that sound didn't reach it effectively. We tried using the light sensor as an input, but the amount of light needed to trigger it couldn't get through the lamp housing. In the end, we decided to use motion to interact with this lamp - tap, shake and rotation all use the accelerometer, and all three work really well!

The Code!

We've learned how to use time.monotonic() to create non-blocking code, how to create a state machine to use multi-step inputs, and how to use generators to allow for interruptible animation cycles. Now we'll put it all together.

Load the file on your Circuit Playground Express, and give it a try! Double-tap to switch between color modes. Rotate left and hold to change brightness. Rotate right and hold to change the speed of the rainbow modes. Shake to turn it off. Rotate left and hold while it's off to turn it back on.

We've combined everything we learned to create this amazingly interactive lamp! We've already learned in detail how to do everything we use in this program. Now we'll take a quick look at the code so we can see how it all fits together.

The Code!

We start with the wheel code, and our definitions of upright, right_side and left_side.

Next, we include all of our generators. We have our special cycle_sequence generator and rainbow_lamp. We also have brightness_lamp which includes the different brightness levels. Then we have color_sequences and heart_rates.

We assign brightness_lamp() to a variable so we can use it later in the code.

The next section sets up the time.monotonic() variables.

Following that, we create the rainbow, state and hold_end variables for later use.

Next, we set the code to look for double-taps and set the threshold for rotation orientation to 2. We set the brightness on startup to 20% (expressed as 0.2). We set the length of time required to hold in a rotated state to 1 second. If you'd like your state machine to require a different hold time, change this number!

With that, we start the loop! First, we get the current time and call acceleration.

Then we have our state machine. If you rotate left and hold, it cycles to the next brightness level in the list. If you rotate right and hold, it uses some of our time.monotonic() variables to help with cycling to the next speed.

Next, the code waits for a double-tap to cycle to the next color mode.

The next section uses the current speed and our time.monotonic() variables to determine how fast to display the rainbow color modes, by determining how fast to call next on rainbow.

And the last section turns the lamp off if you shake it.

And that's it!

Now you have an interactive creature friend to light up your life in all kinds of colors!

We've designed the geometric Sjopenna's code to allow control from afar using a mini infrared remote control. Any remote will work if you properly decode the signals. This project is specifically coded for the Adafruit Mini Remote Control. We'll use the CircuitPython IR remote library to read and decode the IR signals.

This project uses many colors associated with different buttons on the IR remote. To keep the code as efficient as possible, we learned how to use a dictionary to eliminate the need for a large block of if and elif statements. Now we're going to incorporate that into this code.

Regarding Rainbows

The way that the CircuitPython library for the infrared remote code is written, it is not possible to have a rainbow cycle setting. The library code is blocking which does not allow for the cycle generator that we used for Spoka to function properly. It continues only when the board receives an infrared signal, because the read function will wait indefinitely until it reads a signal. Due to the significant IR noise present in most environments, at first glance, the rainbow cycle appears to be functioning. As well, if you were to set a rainbow to a particular button, and then hold the button down constantly, it would spam the signal and cycle the rainbow. However, if you cover the IR sensor to block any signals, you'll find that the cycle does not progress. In the event that intermittent noise is received, the progression is jumpy and inconsistent. Given that we cannot predict the amount of IR noise present in any given environment, or expect you to hold down a button forever, we've chosen not to include a rainbow cycle setting in this code.

The Code!

Due to memory constraints we will not be using the same Express class that we used for Spoka - therefore we will import and initialise each library separately. However, using that class would only eliminate the need to import neopixel and board. The Adafruit IR Remote library, adafruit_irremote, and pulseio are not included in Express class and would have been required regardless.

Let's take a look at the code!

First we import the four libraries we'll be using in our code. Then we setup use of those libraries. Now we'll take a look at the next section.

Variables

First we assign last_command for use later. Then, we assign brightness_up to the IR command code associated with the up arrow on the IR remote, and brightness_down to the code for the down arrow.

Dictionary

Here is where we use the dictionary we learned about!

The keys are the IR codes for the eleven buttons we're using and the values are their associated (r, g, b) tuples. NeoPixel colors are represented using red, green and blue in values of 0 - 255 to determine the amount of a given color. For example, red is (255, 0, 0) as it does not contain any green or blue. When red, green and blue are all off, the values are (0, 0, 0). We'll call this off, and use it to turn off the LEDs. We've used comments on each line to identify which button on the remote and assigned color the dictionary is referring to.

There are 21 buttons total on the Mini IR remote, and in this code, 13 of them are used. If you wanted to add more colors to this project, you can do so by extending the dictionary. You simply need to choose a button, add that key to the dictionary, and assign the desired (r, g, b) value to use them later in the code. Add a comment to the line to make it easier to remember what button and color you chose!

The Loop

The first two sections of code inside the loop are designed to read the incoming IR signals, decode them, and prepare them for practical use.

We must deal with the significant amount of IR noise, which shows up as single-value signals. The line if len(code) > 3: says the signal must be longer longer than three values before we bother to do anything with it. The decoded signal from each button on this remote is four numbers in a list format: [0, 0, 0, 0]. However, for use, you need only the third number from that list. So, when we get a code of the correct length, we assign command to be the third value from the list by assigning command = code[2]. (Remember, in CircuitPython, counting starts with 0, so the third value is 2!)

We've left in the two print statements so you can identify the command code for the unused buttons on the remote in the event you'd like to expand the project to use them.

Simply connect to the REPL, press a button, and use the resulting number in your code. If you choose to add to the color dictionary, this is how you can find the IR code to include as the key!

The last section is where we're telling the code what to do when a particular button is pressed.

When the lamp first lights up, the brightness is set to the maximum. Brightness is a percentage of 0 to 100 represented by a value of 0.0 - 1.0, and is set using pixels.brightness().

When we press the down arrow, assigned to brightness_down, it decreases the brightness by 0.1 each time. When we press the up arrow, assigned to brightness_up, it increases the brightness by 0.1. This will not increase or decrease it beyond the minimum or maximum.

And finally, we get to call our dictionary!

This last elif statement is checking to make sure that the key we're using is found in our dictionary. Without this check, your code will throw an error if you pressed a button not in use, as it cannot use a key or value that isn't found. The last line uses pixels.fill() and the values associated with the keys in the dictionary to turn our NeoPixels the chosen colors. This works because pixels.fill() expects the (r, g, b) values, we've associated the (r, g, b) values the keys in the dictionary. Like we learned earlier, this is how we take what would have been a huge block of elif statements and slimmed it down to one!

Now you can control a lamp from across the room with a little IR remote!