There are several learn guides that have demonstrations of simulated sand particles. This makes a great demonstration with an accelerometer and LED matrix or small display. Until now, all of these demos required Arduino or similar lower level compiled firmware, or even a full on Raspberry Pi. With CircuitPython shifting gears into Turbo and the recent addition of Picogame, it's possible to run projects like this in CircuitPython.

Turbo modules, compiled with Viper, are able to crunch numbers super fast. Numbers like the ones used to simulate gravity and collisions for a lot of particles. Picogame is more efficient at rendering canvas-style graphics of this sort than displayio which keeps the demo rendering smoothly on the Metro RP2350 + TFT Shield.

There are two versions of the hardware for this guide. Use the parts for your version: A Metro TFT or MatrixPortal S3.

Parts - Metro TFT Version

Parts - Matrix Portal S3 Version

Or a 64x64 RGB LED Matrix Panel with 2.5mm, or 3mm pitch.