There is an active group of hardware / microcontroller enthusiasts that meet up monthly here in Seattle and I regularly attend. Recently Scott Shawcroft who is a contract programmer for Adafruit attended the meeting and handed out the Adafruit Gemma M0 with Circuit Python to attendees. This was a special edition that was made for PyCon 2018 with a custom silkscreen and I snagged one. Here it is connected to a small Li-poly battery and shown next to an Arduino Uno to give scale:
As some will know, I have been blogging about experiments with my own small microcontroller development board designs. This little board is designed to be a wearable and features the following:
- ATSAMD21E 48 MHz ARM M0 32 bit processor
- 256KB Flash
- 32 KB RAM
- Native USB
- Arduino IDE or CircuitPython
- Built in RGB DotStar LED
- Battery connection (no charging)
- On / Off switch
- 3 Pins with multiple I/O capability
I like the fact that it has USB which my current designs lack and it is amazing that all of this can be crammed into such a small foot print. I plan on experimenting with the ATSAMD21 more at some point and will try putting together my own board. At $9.95 the Gemma M0 is good value given the support from Adafruit and comes loaded with Circuit Python. I can see the value of Python on small microcontrollers for some, but will probably stay with C / C++ myself. Is anyone using Micro Python or Circuit Python for development or learning? I note that Newark is carrying a Gemma kit with the 8 bit AVR, but not the new M0.
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