Make beautiful 3d printed glowing flowers to string around your room or your back yard.  Use the Circuit Playground Express' onboard sensors to make the lights react to their environment:  when it gets dark outside the lights come on automatically and shine bright, and when it's light out they will turn themselves quietly off.  

This guide will cover modeling the flowers in Fusion360, connecting the light strand to a Circuit Playground Express, and creating animations and reactivity with the MakeCode editor.

There's so much you can do with the Circuit Playground Express. This project is a jumping-off place to creating your own designs and making the lights do whatever you can dream up.

1 x Circuit Playground Express
Circuit Playground Express
1 x Neopixel Strand
4" Pitch Neopixel Strand
1 x 2 pin cable
JST 2-pin cable
1 x 3 pin cable
JST 3-pin cable
1 x Screw Terminal
2.1mm Screw Terminal Adapter
1 x Power Supply
5v 2A power supply
1 x 1N4001 Diode
1N4001 Diode

Tools Needed

  • 3d Printer (or 3d printing service)
  • Soldering iron & accessories OR
  • Wire strippers & alligator clips
  • Heat gun
  • Tiny screwdriver

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

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

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