NOTE: This guide uses newer methods of parsing large json files that may be helpful if you run into issues with schedule size for your sport of choice.

This MagTag project puts your daily sports schedule right on your fridge. Check out the upcoming games in any sport covered by the ESPN API, including NCAA basketball, NHL hockey, NFL football, college baseball, Italia Serie A soccer, and more.

You can press a button to advance to the next game in the series, and any final games will display their score as well!

(Special thanks to my sports-watching brother-in-law Jim Kelly for consultation on this project. Go Bucks!)

Parts

Angled shot of Adafruit MagTag development board with ESP32-S2 and E-Ink display.
The Adafruit MagTag combines the new ESP32-S2 wireless module and a 2.9" grayscale E-Ink display to make a low-power IoT display that can show data on its screen even when power...
Out of Stock

optional:

Angled shot of four magnet feet.
Got a glorious RGB Matrix project you want to mount and display in your workspace or home? If you have one of the matrix panels listed below, you'll need a pack of these...
$2.50
In Stock
Acrylic + Hardware Kit for Adafruit MagTag showing contents
Here is the perfect kit with two faceplate options for your MagTag, including a vivid Red Arrow plate and a dreamy white Cloud plate. And of course, the mounting hardware is included,...
$5.95
In Stock

or

MagTag dev board with enclosure pieces, four magnet feet, and lipoly battery
The Adafruit MagTag combines the new ESP32-S2 wireless module and a 2.9" grayscale E-Ink display to make a low-power IoT display that can show data on its screen...
Out of Stock

CircuitPython is a derivative of MicroPython designed to simplify experimentation and education on low-cost microcontrollers. It makes it easier than ever to get prototyping by requiring no upfront desktop software downloads. Simply copy and edit files on the CIRCUITPY drive to iterate.

Set Up CircuitPython

Follow the steps to get CircuitPython installed on your MagTag.

Click the link above and download the latest .BIN and .UF2 file

(depending on how you program the ESP32S2 board you may need one or the other, might as well get both)

Download and save it to your desktop (or wherever is handy).

Plug your MagTag into your computer using a known-good USB cable.

A lot of people end up using charge-only USB cables and it is very frustrating! So make sure you have a USB cable you know is good for data sync.

Option 1 - Load with UF2 Bootloader

This is by far the easiest way to load CircuitPython. However it requires your board has the UF2 bootloader installed. Some early boards do not (we hadn't written UF2 yet!) - in which case you can load using the built in ROM bootloader.

Still, try this first!

Try Launching UF2 Bootloader

Loading CircuitPython by drag-n-drop UF2 bootloader is the easier way and we recommend it. If you have a MagTag where the front of the board is black, your MagTag came with UF2 already on it.

Launch UF2 by double-clicking the Reset button (the one next to the USB C port). You may have to try a few times to get the timing right.

If the UF2 bootloader is installed, you will see a new disk drive appear called MAGTAGBOOT

Copy the UF2 file you downloaded at the first step of this tutorial onto the MAGTAGBOOT drive

If you're using Windows and you get an error at the end of the file copy that says Error from the file copy, Error 0x800701B1: A device which does not exist was specified. You can ignore this error, the bootloader sometimes disconnects without telling Windows, the install completed just fine and you can continue. If its really annoying, you can also upgrade the bootloader (the latest version of the UF2 bootloader fixes this warning)

Your board should auto-reset into CircuitPython, or you may need to press reset. A CIRCUITPY drive will appear. You're done! Go to the next pages.

Option 2 - Use esptool to load BIN file

If you have an original MagTag with while soldermask on the front, we didn't have UF2 written for the ESP32S2 yet so it will not come with the UF2 bootloader.

You can upload with esptool to the ROM (hardware) bootloader instead!

Follow the initial steps found in the Run esptool and check connection section of the ROM Bootloader page to verify your environment is set up, your board is successfully connected, and which port it's using.

In the final command to write a binary file to the board, replace the port with your port, and replace "firmware.bin" with the the file you downloaded above.

The output should look something like the output in the image.

Press reset to exit the bootloader.

Your CIRCUITPY drive should appear!

You're all set! Go to the next pages.

Option 3 - Use Chrome Browser To Upload BIN file

If for some reason you cannot get esptool to run, you can always try using the Chrome-browser version of esptool we have written. This is handy if you don't have Python on your computer, or something is really weird with your setup that makes esptool not run (which happens sometimes and isn't worth debugging!) You can follow along on the Web Serial ESPTool page and either load the UF2 bootloader and then come back to Option 1 on this page, or you can download the CircuitPython BIN file directly using the tool in the same manner as the bootloader.

One of the great things about the ESP32 is the built-in WiFi capabilities. This page covers the basics of getting connected using CircuitPython.

The first thing you need to do is update your code.py to the following. Click the Download Project Bundle button below to download the necessary libraries and the code.py file in a zip file. Extract the contents of the zip file, and copy the entire lib folder and the code.py file to your CIRCUITPY drive.

# SPDX-FileCopyrightText: 2020 Brent Rubell for Adafruit Industries
#
# SPDX-License-Identifier: MIT

import os
import ipaddress
import ssl
import wifi
import socketpool
import adafruit_requests

# URLs to fetch from
TEXT_URL = "http://wifitest.adafruit.com/testwifi/index.html"
JSON_QUOTES_URL = "https://www.adafruit.com/api/quotes.php"
JSON_STARS_URL = "https://api.github.com/repos/adafruit/circuitpython"

print("ESP32-S2 WebClient Test")

print(f"My MAC address: {[hex(i) for i in wifi.radio.mac_address]}")

print("Available WiFi networks:")
for network in wifi.radio.start_scanning_networks():
    print("\t%s\t\tRSSI: %d\tChannel: %d" % (str(network.ssid, "utf-8"),
                                             network.rssi, network.channel))
wifi.radio.stop_scanning_networks()

print(f"Connecting to {os.getenv('CIRCUITPY_WIFI_SSID')}")
wifi.radio.connect(os.getenv("CIRCUITPY_WIFI_SSID"), os.getenv("CIRCUITPY_WIFI_PASSWORD"))
print(f"Connected to {os.getenv('CIRCUITPY_WIFI_SSID')}")
print(f"My IP address: {wifi.radio.ipv4_address}")

ping_ip = ipaddress.IPv4Address("8.8.8.8")
ping = wifi.radio.ping(ip=ping_ip)

# retry once if timed out
if ping is None:
    ping = wifi.radio.ping(ip=ping_ip)

if ping is None:
    print("Couldn't ping 'google.com' successfully")
else:
    # convert s to ms
    print(f"Pinging 'google.com' took: {ping * 1000} ms")

pool = socketpool.SocketPool(wifi.radio)
requests = adafruit_requests.Session(pool, ssl.create_default_context())

print(f"Fetching text from {TEXT_URL}")
response = requests.get(TEXT_URL)
print("-" * 40)
print(response.text)
print("-" * 40)

print(f"Fetching json from {JSON_QUOTES_URL}")
response = requests.get(JSON_QUOTES_URL)
print("-" * 40)
print(response.json())
print("-" * 40)

print()

print(f"Fetching and parsing json from {JSON_STARS_URL}")
response = requests.get(JSON_STARS_URL)
print("-" * 40)
print(f"CircuitPython GitHub Stars: {response.json()['stargazers_count']}")
print("-" * 40)

print("Done")

Your CIRCUITPY drive should resemble the following.

CIRCUITPY

To get connected, the next thing you need to do is update the settings.toml file.

The settings.toml File

We expect people to share tons of projects as they build CircuitPython WiFi widgets. What we want to avoid is people accidentally sharing their passwords or secret tokens and API keys. So, we designed all our examples to use a settings.toml file, that is on your CIRCUITPY drive, to hold secret/private/custom data. That way you can share your main project without worrying about accidentally sharing private stuff.

If you have a fresh install of CircuitPython on your board, the initial settings.toml file on your CIRCUITPY drive is empty.

To get started, you can update the settings.toml on your CIRCUITPY drive to contain the following code.

# SPDX-FileCopyrightText: 2023 Adafruit Industries
#
# SPDX-License-Identifier: MIT

# This is where you store the credentials necessary for your code.
# The associated demo only requires WiFi, but you can include any
# credentials here, such as Adafruit IO username and key, etc.
CIRCUITPY_WIFI_SSID = "your-wifi-ssid"
CIRCUITPY_WIFI_PASSWORD = "your-wifi-password"

This file should contain a series of Python variables, each assigned to a string. Each variable should describe what it represents (say wifi_ssid), followed by an (equals sign), followed by the data in the form of a Python string (such as "my-wifi-password" including the quote marks).

At a minimum you'll need to add/update your WiFi SSID and WiFi password, so do that now!

As you make projects you may need more tokens and keys, just add them one line at a time. See for example other tokens such as one for accessing GitHub or the Hackaday API. Other non-secret data like your timezone can also go here.

For the correct time zone string, look at http://worldtimeapi.org/timezones and remember that if your city is not listed, look for a city in the same time zone, for example Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Washington DC, and Miami are all on the same time as New York.

Of course, don't share your settings.toml - keep that out of GitHub, Discord or other project-sharing sites.

Don't share your settings.toml file! It has your passwords and API keys in it!

If you connect to the serial console, you should see something like the following:

In order, the example code...

Checks the ESP32's MAC address.

print(f"My MAC address: {[hex(i) for i in wifi.radio.mac_address]}")

Performs a scan of all access points and prints out the access point's name (SSID), signal strength (RSSI), and channel.

print("Available WiFi networks:")
for network in wifi.radio.start_scanning_networks():
    print("\t%s\t\tRSSI: %d\tChannel: %d" % (str(network.ssid, "utf-8"),
                                             network.rssi, network.channel))
wifi.radio.stop_scanning_networks()

Connects to the access point you defined in the settings.toml file, and prints out its local IP address.

print(f"Connecting to {os.getenv('WIFI_SSID')}")
wifi.radio.connect(os.getenv("WIFI_SSID"), os.getenv("WIFI_PASSWORD"))
print(f"Connected to {os.getenv('WIFI_SSID')}")
print(f"My IP address: {wifi.radio.ipv4_address}")

Attempts to ping a Google DNS server to test connectivity. If a ping fails, it returns None. Initial pings can sometimes fail for various reasons. So, if the initial ping is successful (is not None), it will print the echo speed in ms. If the initial ping fails, it will try one more time to ping, and then print the returned value. If the second ping fails, it will result in "Ping google.com: None ms" being printed to the serial console. Failure to ping does not always indicate a lack of connectivity, so the code will continue to run.

ping_ip = ipaddress.IPv4Address("8.8.8.8")
ping = wifi.radio.ping(ip=ping_ip) * 1000
if ping is not None:
    print(f"Ping google.com: {ping} ms")
else:
    ping = wifi.radio.ping(ip=ping_ip)
    print(f"Ping google.com: {ping} ms")

The code creates a socketpool using the wifi radio's available sockets. This is performed so we don't need to re-use sockets. Then, it initializes a a new instance of the requests interface - which makes getting data from the internet really really easy.

pool = socketpool.SocketPool(wifi.radio)
requests = adafruit_requests.Session(pool, ssl.create_default_context())

To read in plain-text from a web URL, call requests.get - you may pass in either a http, or a https url for SSL connectivity. 

print(f"Fetching text from {TEXT_URL}")
response = requests.get(TEXT_URL)
print("-" * 40)
print(response.text)
print("-" * 40)

Requests can also display a JSON-formatted response from a web URL using a call to requests.get

print(f"Fetching json from {JSON_QUOTES_URL}")
response = requests.get(JSON_QUOTES_URL)
print("-" * 40)
print(response.json())
print("-" * 40)

Finally, you can fetch and parse a JSON URL using requests.get. This code snippet obtains the stargazers_count field from a call to the GitHub API.

print(f"Fetching and parsing json from {JSON_STARS_URL}")
response = requests.get(JSON_STARS_URL)
print("-" * 40)
print(f"CircuitPython GitHub Stars: {response.json()['stargazers_count']}")
print("-" * 40)

OK you now have your ESP32 board set up with a proper settings.toml file and can connect over the Internet. If not, check that your settings.toml file has the right SSID and password and retrace your steps until you get the Internet connectivity working!

To use all the amazing features of your MagTag with CircuitPython, you must first install a number of libraries. This page covers that process.

Get Latest Adafruit CircuitPython Bundle

Download the Adafruit CircuitPython Library Bundle. You can find the latest release here:

Download the adafruit-circuitpython-bundle-version-mpy-*.zip bundle zip file, and unzip a folder of the same name. Inside you'll find a lib folder. The entire collection of libraries is too large to fit on the CIRCUITPY drive. Therefore, you'll need to copy the necessary libraries to your board individually.

At a minimum, the following libraries are required. Copy the following folders or .mpy files to the lib folder on your CIRCUITPY drive. If the library is a folder, copy the entire folder to the lib folder on your board.

Library folders (copy the whole folder over to lib):

  • adafruit_magtag - This is a helper library designed for using all of the features of the MagTag, including networking, buttons, NeoPixels, etc.
  • adafruit_portalbase - This library is the base library that adafruit_magtag is built on top of.
  • adafruit_bitmap_font - There is fancy font support, and it's easy to make new fonts. This library reads and parses font files.
  • adafruit_display_text - This library displays text on the screen.
  • adafruit_io - This library helps connect the MagTag to our free data logging and viewing service
  • adafruit_minimqtt - This library provides MQTT service for Adafruit IO.

Library files:

  • adafruit_requests.mpy - This library allows us to perform HTTP requests and get responses back from servers. GET/POST/PUT/PATCH - they're all in here!
  • adafruit_fakerequests.mpy  - This library allows you to create fake HTTP requests by using local files.
  • adafruit_miniqr.mpy  - QR creation library lets us add easy-to-scan 2D barcodes to the E-Ink display
  • neopixel.mpy - This library is used to control the onboard NeoPixels.
  • simpleio.mpy - This library is used for tone generation.

Secrets

Even if you aren't planning to go online with your MagTag, you'll need to have a secrets.py file in the root directory (top level) of your CIRCUITPY drive. If you do not intend to connect to wireless, it does not need to have valid data in it. Here's more info on the secrets.py file.

Text Editor

Adafruit recommends using the Mu editor for editing your CircuitPython code. You can get more info in this guide.

Alternatively, you can use any text editor that saves simple text files.

Code

Click the Download Project Bundle button below in the code window to get a zip file with all the files needed for the project. Copy code.py from the zip file and place on the CIRCUITPY drive.

Copy the /fonts directory from the zip file linked below and place and its contents it on the CIRCUITPY drive.

Once all the files are on the MagTag CIRCUITPY drive, the directory structure should be the same as the listing below. If not, ensure you've got all the files noted in prior steps.

# SPDX-FileCopyrightText: 2021 Melissa LeBlanc-Williams and John Park for Adafruit Industries
# SPDX-License-Identifier: MIT

# MagTag Sports Schedule Viewer
# Be sure to add your wifi credentials to the secrets.py file

# Press D to advance to next game
# Press C to go back one game
# Press B to refresh the schedule (this takes a minute)
# Press A to advance to next sport (this takes a minute)


import time
import json
from adafruit_datetime import datetime, timedelta
from adafruit_magtag.magtag import MagTag

USE_24HR_TIME = False
TIME_ZONE_OFFSET = -8  # hours ahead or behind Zulu time, e.g. Pacific is -8
TIME_ZONE_NAME = "PST"

#  API info here https://www.gpwa.org/forum/espns-hidden-api-scores-stats-json-endpoints-251149.html
#  Note, these will only work when the sport is in season.

SPORTS = [
    {
        "name": "NCAA Men's Basketball",
        # pylint: disable=line-too-long
        "url": "http://site.api.espn.com/apis/site/v2/sports/basketball/mens-college-basketball/scoreboard",
    },
    {
        "name": "NCAA Wmn's Basketball",
        # pylint: disable=line-too-long
        "url": "http://site.api.espn.com/apis/site/v2/sports/basketball/womens-college-basketball/scoreboard",
    },
    {
        "name": "NHL Hockey",
        "url": "http://site.api.espn.com/apis/site/v2/sports/hockey/nhl/scoreboard",
    },
    {
        "name": "NFL Football",
        "url": "http://site.api.espn.com/apis/site/v2/sports/football/nfl/scoreboard",
    },
    {
        "name": "MLB Baseball",
        "url": "http://site.api.espn.com/apis/site/v2/sports/baseball/mlb/scoreboard",
    },
    {
        "name": "College Baseball",
        "url": "http://site.api.espn.com/apis/site/v2/sports/baseball/college-baseball/scoreboard",
    },
    {
        "name": "NBA Basketball",
        "url": "http://site.api.espn.com/apis/site/v2/sports/basketball/nba/scoreboard",
    },
    {
        "name": "WNBA Basketball",
        "url": "http://site.api.espn.com/apis/site/v2/sports/basketball/wnba/scoreboard",
    },
    {
        "name": "College Football",
        "url": "http://site.api.espn.com/apis/site/v2/sports/football/college-football/scoreboard",
    },
    {
        "name": "MLS Soccer",
        "url": "http://site.api.espn.com/apis/site/v2/sports/soccer/usa.1/scoreboard",
    },
    {
        "name": "Premiere League",
        "url": "http://site.api.espn.com/apis/site/v2/sports/soccer/eng.1/scoreboard",
    },
    {
        "name": "Italian Serie A",
        "url": "http://site.api.espn.com/apis/site/v2/sports/soccer/ita.1/scoreboard",
    },
    {
        "name": "German Bundesliga",
        "url": "http://site.api.espn.com/apis/site/v2/sports/soccer/ger.1/scoreboard",
    },
]


current_game = 0
#  You can cycle among different sports with the A button, or set it here:
current_sport = 0
sports_data = []

EVENTS_LOCATION = ["events"]
STATUS_LOCATION = ["status", "type", "description"]
BROADCAST_LOCATION = ["competitions", 0, "broadcasts"]
IS_FINAL_LOCATION = ["competitions", 0, "status", "type", "id"]
SCORES_LOCATION = ["competitions", 0, "competitors"]
SCORE_0_LOCATION = ["competitions", 0, "competitors", 0, "score"]
SCORE_1_LOCATION = ["competitions", 0, "competitors", 1, "score"]

months = [
    "Jan",
    "Feb",
    "March",
    "April",
    "May",
    "June",
    "July",
    "Aug",
    "Sept",
    "Oct",
    "Nov",
    "Dec",
]

# Set up the MagTag with the JSON data parameters
magtag = MagTag(
    url=SPORTS[current_sport]["url"],
)


def format_date(iso_formatted_date):
    if iso_formatted_date is None:
        return "When: Unavailable"
    date = datetime.fromisoformat(iso_formatted_date[:-1])
    date += timedelta(hours=TIME_ZONE_OFFSET)

    if USE_24HR_TIME:
        timestring = "%d:%02d %s" % (date.hour, date.minute, TIME_ZONE_NAME)
    elif date.hour > 12:
        timestring = "%d:%02d pm %s" % (
            abs((date.hour - 12) % 12),
            date.minute,
            TIME_ZONE_NAME,
        )
    else:
        timestring = "%d:%02d am %s" % (date.hour, date.minute, TIME_ZONE_NAME)

    return "%s %d, %s" % (months[date.month - 1], date.day, timestring)


def format_score(scores, is_final):
    home_score = scores[0]["score"]
    away_score = scores[1]["score"]
    if not home_score or not away_score:
        return "Unavailable"
    if int(is_final) == 3:
        return "%s - %s" % (home_score, away_score)
    return " "


def format_available(value):
    if value is None:
        return "Unavailable"
    return value


def format_broadcast(value):
    if not value:
        value = "N/A"
    else:
        value = magtag.network.json_traverse(value, [0, "names", 0])
    return "Airing on: " + value


def get_game_number():
    return "Game %d of %d" % (current_game + 1, len(sports_data))


def play_tone(frequency, color=None):
    magtag.peripherals.neopixel_disable = False
    if color:
        magtag.peripherals.neopixels.fill(color)
    magtag.peripherals.play_tone(frequency, 0.2)
    magtag.peripherals.neopixel_disable = True


def update_labels():
    # Set the labels for the current game data
    magtag.set_text(SPORTS[current_sport]["name"], 0, False)
    magtag.set_text(sports_data[current_game]["name"], 1, False)
    magtag.set_text(sports_data[current_game]["date"], 2, False)
    magtag.set_text(sports_data[current_game]["broadcast"], 3, False)
    magtag.set_text(sports_data[current_game]["status"], 4, False)
    magtag.set_text(get_game_number(), 5, False)
    magtag.set_text(sports_data[current_game]["score"], 6)
    # wait 2 seconds for display to complete
    time.sleep(2)


def fetch_sports_data(reset_game_number=True):
    # Fetches and parses data for all games for the current sport
    # pylint: disable=global-statement
    global sports_data, current_game, current_sport
    magtag.url = SPORTS[current_sport]["url"]
    sports_data.clear()
    raw_data = json.loads(magtag.fetch(auto_refresh=False))
    events = raw_data["events"]
    for event in events:
        game_data = {}
        game_data["name"] = format_available(event["name"])
        game_data["date"] = format_date(event["date"])
        game_data["status"] = "Game status: " + format_available(
            magtag.network.json_traverse(event, STATUS_LOCATION)
        )
        game_data["broadcast"] = format_broadcast(
            magtag.network.json_traverse(event, BROADCAST_LOCATION)
        )
        scores = magtag.network.json_traverse(event, SCORES_LOCATION)
        is_final = magtag.network.json_traverse(event, IS_FINAL_LOCATION)
        game_data["score"] = format_score(scores, is_final)
        sports_data.append(game_data)
    if reset_game_number or current_game > len(sports_data):
        current_game = 0
    update_labels()


# Sports Name
magtag.add_text(
    text_font="/fonts/Lato-Bold-ltd-25.bdf", text_position=(10, 15), is_data=False
)

# Game Name
magtag.add_text(
    text_font="/fonts/Arial-Bold-12.pcf",
    text_wrap=35,
    line_spacing=0.75,
    text_position=(10, 70),
    is_data=False,
)

# Date
magtag.add_text(text_font="/fonts/Arial-12.bdf", text_position=(10, 40), is_data=False)

# Broadcast Information
magtag.add_text(
    text_font="/fonts/Arial-Italic-12.bdf", text_position=(10, 98), is_data=False
)

# Game Status
magtag.add_text(
    text_font="/fonts/Arial-Italic-12.bdf", text_position=(10, 116), is_data=False
)

# Game Number
magtag.add_text(
    text_font="/fonts/Arial-Italic-12.bdf", text_position=(190, 38), is_data=False
)

# Score
magtag.add_text(
    text_font="/fonts/Arial-Bold-24.bdf", text_position=(170, 94), is_data=False
)

fetch_sports_data()

while True:
    if magtag.peripherals.button_a_pressed:  # switch to next sport
        play_tone(620, 0x000033)
        current_sport += 1
        if current_sport >= len(SPORTS):
            current_sport = 0
        fetch_sports_data()
    elif magtag.peripherals.button_b_pressed:  # re-fetch data
        play_tone(220, 0x330000)
        fetch_sports_data(False)
    elif magtag.peripherals.button_c_pressed:  # display previous game
        play_tone(350, 0x330000)
        current_game -= 1
        if current_game < 0:
            current_game = len(sports_data) - 1
        update_labels()
    elif magtag.peripherals.button_d_pressed:  # display next game
        play_tone(440, 0x003300)
        current_game += 1
        if current_game >= len(sports_data):
            current_game = 0
        update_labels()

    time.sleep(0.01)

How It Works

When you start it up, the MagTag will get online using your WiFi access point credentials you entered in the secrets.py file. It will then take a minute to download the entire json file from the ESPN API for the sport selected (initially NCAA Men's Basketball, but you can switch sports with the MagTag's A button, or with the current_sport variable in the code).

Press the D button to advance to the next game in the schedule, Press C to go back one game, in case you missed some important details!

If you want to refresh the json data for the day, press the B button.

Libraries

You'll first import the libraries time, json, adafruit_datetime (to deal with timezone/dateline conversion, since your timezone may differ from the Zulu time in the API), and adafruit_magtag.

Next, you'll set some variables related to timezone:

USE_24HR_TIME = False
TIME_ZONE_OFFSET = -8  # hours ahead or behind Zulu time, e.g. Pacific is -8
TIME_ZONE_NAME = "PST"

API JSON URLs

These are a number of the sports available from the ESPN API. You can read more details and get more sports here.

SPORTS = [
    {
        "name": "NCAA Men's Basketball",
        #pylint: disable=line-too-long
        "url": "http://site.api.espn.com/apis/site/v2/sports/basketball/mens-college-basketball/scoreboard",
    },
    {
        "name": "NCAA Wmn's Basketball",
        #pylint: disable=line-too-long
        "url": "http://site.api.espn.com/apis/site/v2/sports/basketball/womens-college-basketball/scoreboard",
    },
    {
        "name": "NHL Hockey",
        "url": "http://site.api.espn.com/apis/site/v2/sports/hockey/nhl/scoreboard",
    },
    {
        "name": "NFL Football",
        "url": "http://site.api.espn.com/apis/site/v2/sports/football/nfl/scoreboard",
    },
    {
        "name": "MLB Baseball",
        "url": "http://site.api.espn.com/apis/site/v2/sports/baseball/mlb/scoreboard",
    },
    {
        "name": "College Baseball",
        "url": "http://site.api.espn.com/apis/site/v2/sports/baseball/college-baseball/scoreboard",
    },
    {
        "name": "NBA Basketball",
        "url": "http://site.api.espn.com/apis/site/v2/sports/basketball/nba/scoreboard",
    },
    {
        "name": "WNBA Basketball",
        "url": "http://site.api.espn.com/apis/site/v2/sports/basketball/wnba/scoreboard",
    },
    {
        "name": "College Football",
        "url": "http://site.api.espn.com/apis/site/v2/sports/football/college-football/scoreboard",
    },
    {
        "name": "MLS Soccer",
        "url": "http://site.api.espn.com/apis/site/v2/sports/soccer/usa.1/scoreboard",
    },
    {
        "name": "Premiere League",
        "url": "http://site.api.espn.com/apis/site/v2/sports/soccer/eng.1/scoreboard",
    },
    {
        "name": "Italian Serie A",
        "url": "http://site.api.espn.com/apis/site/v2/sports/soccer/ita.1/scoreboard",
    },
    {
        "name": "German Bundesliga",
        "url": "http://site.api.espn.com/apis/site/v2/sports/soccer/ger.1/scoreboard",
    },
]

Game Variables

These variables are used to track which sport is being used and which game is currently displayed, as well as setting up the variable that will be used to parse the json date. The json files in the ESPN API are very consistent, so the locations of, say, the event scores for a final are consistent from game to game and sport to sport. Yay for standards!

current_game = 0
#  You can cycle among different sports with the A button, or set it here:
current_sport = 0
sports_data = []

EVENTS_LOCATION = ["events"]
STATUS_LOCATION = ["status", "type", "description"]
BROADCAST_LOCATION = ["competitions", 0, "broadcasts"]
IS_FINAL_LOCATION = ["competitions", 0, "status", "type", "id"]
SCORES_LOCATION = ["competitions", 0, "competitors"]
SCORE_0_LOCATION = ["competitions", 0, "competitors", 0, "score"]
SCORE_1_LOCATION = ["competitions", 0, "competitors", 1, "score"]

MagTag Setup & Date Time Function

You'll set up the MagTag device, with the URL argument, and then create a function to format the date and time.

magtag = MagTag(
    url=SPORTS[current_sport]["url"],
)


def format_date(iso_formatted_date):
    if iso_formatted_date is None:
        return "When: Unavailable"
    date = datetime.fromisoformat(iso_formatted_date[:-1])
    date += timedelta(hours=TIME_ZONE_OFFSET)

    if USE_24HR_TIME:
        timestring = "%d:%02d %s" % (date.hour, date.minute, TIME_ZONE_NAME)
    elif date.hour > 12:
        timestring = "%d:%02d pm %s" % (
            abs((date.hour - 12) % 12),
            date.minute,
            TIME_ZONE_NAME,
        )
    else:
        timestring = "%d:%02d am %s" % (date.hour, date.minute, TIME_ZONE_NAME)

    return "%s %d, %s" % (months[date.month - 1], date.day, timestring)

Functions, Functions, Functions

The next few functions are the dark inner workings for formatting all the little bits of data we need to display.

def format_score(scores, is_final):
    home_score = scores[0]["score"]
    away_score = scores[1]["score"]
    if not home_score or not away_score:
        return "Unavailable"
    if int(is_final) == 3:
        return "%s - %s" % (home_score, away_score)
    return " "


def format_available(value):
    if value is None:
        return "Unavailable"
    return value


def format_broadcast(value):
    if not value:
        value = "N/A"
    else:
        value = magtag.network.json_traverse(value, [0, "names", 0])
    return "Airing on: " + value


def get_game_number():
    return "Game %d of %d" % (current_game + 1, len(sports_data))


def play_tone(frequency, color=None):
    magtag.peripherals.neopixel_disable = False
    if color:
        magtag.peripherals.neopixels.fill(color)
    magtag.peripherals.play_tone(frequency, 0.2)
    magtag.peripherals.neopixel_disable = True


def update_labels():
    # Set the labels for the current game data
    magtag.set_text(SPORTS[current_sport]["name"], 0, False)
    magtag.set_text(sports_data[current_game]["name"], 1, False)
    magtag.set_text(sports_data[current_game]["date"], 2, False)
    magtag.set_text(sports_data[current_game]["broadcast"], 3, False)
    magtag.set_text(sports_data[current_game]["status"], 4, False)
    magtag.set_text(get_game_number(), 5, False)
    magtag.set_text(sports_data[current_game]["score"], 6)
    # wait 2 seconds for display to complete
    time.sleep(2)


def fetch_sports_data(reset_game_number=True):
    # Fetches and parses data for all games for the current sport
    #pylint: disable=global-statement
    global sports_data, current_game, current_sport
    magtag.url = SPORTS[current_sport]["url"]
    sports_data.clear()
    raw_data = json.loads(magtag.fetch(auto_refresh=False))
    events = raw_data["events"]
    for event in events:
        game_data = {}
        game_data["name"] = format_available(event["name"])
        game_data["date"] = format_date(event["date"])
        game_data["status"] = "Game status: " + format_available(
            magtag.network.json_traverse(event, STATUS_LOCATION)
        )
        game_data["broadcast"] = format_broadcast(
            magtag.network.json_traverse(event, BROADCAST_LOCATION)
        )
        scores = magtag.network.json_traverse(event, SCORES_LOCATION)
        is_final = magtag.network.json_traverse(event, IS_FINAL_LOCATION)
        game_data["score"] = format_score(scores, is_final)
        sports_data.append(game_data)
    if reset_game_number or current_game > len(sports_data):
        current_game = 0
    update_labels()

Labels

The text to be displayed on the MagTag is set up next.

magtag.add_text(
    text_font="/fonts/Lato-Bold-ltd-25.bdf", text_position=(10, 15), is_data=False
)

# Game Name
magtag.add_text(
    text_font="/fonts/Arial-Bold-12.pcf",
    text_wrap=35,
    line_spacing=0.75,
    text_position=(10, 70),
    is_data=False,
)

# Date
magtag.add_text(text_font="/fonts/Arial-12.bdf", text_position=(10, 40), is_data=False)

# Broadcast Information
magtag.add_text(
    text_font="/fonts/Arial-Italic-12.bdf", text_position=(10, 100), is_data=False
)

# Game Status
magtag.add_text(
    text_font="/fonts/Arial-Italic-12.bdf", text_position=(10, 120), is_data=False
)

# Game Number
magtag.add_text(
    text_font="/fonts/Arial-Italic-12.bdf", text_position=(190, 38), is_data=False
)

# Score
magtag.add_text(
    text_font="/fonts/Arial-Bold-24.bdf", text_position=(170, 94), is_data=False
)

Fetch

The last bit of setup is to fetch the sports data from the selected URL using fetch_sports_data()

This causes the data to be downloaded, parsed, formatted, and finally displayed on the MagTag screen!

Main Loop

The main loop of the program watches for button presses and changes or fetches new data depending on the button pressed.

while True:
    if magtag.peripherals.button_a_pressed:  # switch to next sport
        play_tone(620, 0x000033)
        current_sport += 1
        if current_sport >= len(SPORTS):
            current_sport = 0
        fetch_sports_data()
    elif magtag.peripherals.button_b_pressed:  # re-fetch data
        play_tone(220, 0x330000)
        fetch_sports_data(False)
    elif magtag.peripherals.button_c_pressed:  # display previous game
        play_tone(350, 0x330000)
        current_game -= 1
        if current_game < 0:
            current_game = len(sports_data) - 1
        update_labels()
    elif magtag.peripherals.button_d_pressed:  # display next game
        play_tone(440, 0x003300)
        current_game += 1
        if current_game >= len(sports_data):
            current_game = 0
        update_labels()

    time.sleep(0.01)

This guide was first published on Feb 24, 2021. It was last updated on Mar 29, 2024.