Would you like to learn electronics, with an all-in-one board that has sensors and LEDs built in? Circuit Playground is here, and it's the best way to practice programming on real hardware. No soldering or sewing required!

Circuit Playground features an ATmega32u4 micro-processor, just like our popular Flora. It also is round and has alligator-clip pads around it. You can power it from USB, a AAA battery pack, or Lipoly (for advanced users). Program your code into it, then take it on the go.

  • ATmega32u4 Processor, running at 3.3V and 8MHz
  • MicroUSB port for programming and debugging with Arduino IDE
  • USB port can act like serial port, keyboard, mouse, joystick or MIDI

Circuit Playground has built-in USB support. Built in USB means you plug it in to program it, it just shows up - all you need is a Micro-B USB cable, no additional purchases are needed! With the new 1.6.4+ Arduino IDE, it takes only a few seconds to add support. The Circuit Playground has USB HID support, so it can act like a mouse or keyboard to attach directly to computers.

Here's some of the great goodies baked in:

  • 10 x mini NeoPixels, each one can display any rainbow color
  • 1 x Motion sensor (LIS3DH triple-axis accelerometer with tap detection, free-fall detection)
  • 1 x Temperature sensor (thermistor)
  • 1 x Light sensor (phototransistor)
  • 1 x Sound sensor (MEMS microphone)
  • 1 x Mini speaker (magnetic buzzer)
  • 2 x Push buttons, left and right
  • 1 x Slide switch
  • 8 x alligator-clip friendly input/output pins
    Includes I2C, UART, and 4 pins that can do analog inputs/PWM output
  • All 8 pads can act as capacitive touch inputs
  • Green "ON" LED so you know its powered
  • Red "#13" LED for basic blinking
  • Reset button

We've started out with a Developer Edition of Circuit Playground. This version is designed for people who have a little experience with Arduino already, who want to help build & document projects. There might be minor hardware or software bugs. Once we feel like the design is really solid we'll revise/re-release it into a universal edition for anyone to use!

This guide was first published on Apr 26, 2016. It was last updated on Mar 08, 2024.

This page (Overview) was last updated on Apr 25, 2016.

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