Creative and Interactive Robotics Chat

welcome @limor and @pt !

pt3:01 PM
live vid is here folks'

Prof. Fartsparkle3:02 PM
hah. the talking heads are cute

awesome, thanks

limor3:02 PM
thank you @Sophi Kravitz  and the hackaday community for having me on this hackchat about creative robotics!@


limor3:04 PM
its a robot roadshow!


Stephen Tranovich3:04 PM
The robot co-hosts are SO GOOD

oh yeah... let's start!!

Limor, can you intro yourself to all of us?

limor3:05 PM
of course

limor3:05 PM
so i’m the lead engineer and owner of adafruit

limor3:05 PM
thats our open source software and hardware factory here in nyc

limor3:05 PM
in soho!

limor3:06 PM
so the machines are running you can even hear them on the livestream and maybe see some people loading up the feeders

yeah those machines sound loud

and happy

limor3:06 PM
clean and well oiled machines are happy machines

this chat feeds my ADD- video and text both in two locations!!

limor3:07 PM
we're here for a half hour! hit me up with the Q's!

Morning.Star3:07 PM
Hey hey. :-) I'm back. Well fed machines too :-)

Q:

give us the lowdown on how CRICKIT works
Rob Ray joined  the room.3:07 PM

questions!!

^^^

yessss hardware details

limor3:08 PM
crickit started as a project fcalled seesaw

limor3:08 PM
basically we see so many different chips on the market which is great

limor3:08 PM
but some like the esp8266 don’t have, say, analog in

limor3:08 PM
and some don’t have a lot of timers or pwm like the raspi

limor3:08 PM
i was seeing people want to build animatronics, creative bots

limor3:09 PM
but got hit with "ugh this hardware i using doesnt have 5 PWMs or ADC or the ability to drive neopixels"

limor3:09 PM
so seesaw was the solution for that

limor3:09 PM
its a i2c -> anything concerter

limor3:09 PM
now you can buy i2c counters, like ADCs, DACs, PWMs etc

Morning.Star3:09 PM
heh

limor3:09 PM
but by the time you add em all up, it’s like $4 BOM

limor3:09 PM
sux

limor3:10 PM
its waaay cheaper to have a cortex m0 that HAS ALL THIS STUFF FOR FREE
kevin forsythe joined  the room.3:10 PM

limor3:10 PM
and then you just write a transport

limor3:10 PM
so we did

limor3:10 PM
NOW we can do robots

limor3:10 PM
because i wanted to keep the price low enough that you aren’t spending hundreds of $ - you can take advantage of seesaw and then pair it with your fav micro

limor3:10 PM
whether that be esp82, esp32, raspi, microbit, teensy, feather etc

limor3:10 PM
cause its just I2C

limor3:11 PM
and everything every in the history of everything has I2C master

Paul Stoffregen3:11 PM
:)

Prof. Fartsparkle3:11 PM
I always wondered why these dedicated ICs are often so expensive even though they are less complicated than the MCU which does the same and more

Michael Welling3:11 PM
voice to text anyone?

Morning.Star3:11 PM
cool

ðeshipu3:11 PM
except for the ESP8266

limor3:11 PM
phil and i went to dimsum

Orlando Hoilett3:11 PM
@Michael Welling  nah. this is way cooler

limor3:11 PM
and we decided lest make a robot platfor for all his awesome ideas!

Orlando Hoilett3:11 PM
Watching the broadcast as well as paying attention to the chat is pretty hilarious. Lol.

limor3:11 PM
we literlly sketched on a napkin

Frank Buss3:11 PM
some PICs don't have hardware I2C either

limor3:12 PM
adn came up with the octogon

limor3:12 PM
you can bitbang i2c it isnt the end of the world

limor3:12 PM
you just need to have open drain pins

limor3:12 PM
if you dont - seesaw is not for you

Frank Buss3:12 PM
right, but then you can't do much else with a small PIC :-)

limor3:13 PM
frank, dont use a PIC 12C509

limor3:13 PM
we've got more chips now ;)

Frank Buss3:13 PM
lol, I know

Paul Stoffregen3:13 PM
haha, not 1995 anymore!

limor3:14 PM
ok any more Qs

Boian Mitov3:14 PM
So do you want it also programmable with Visuino ? ;-)

hi Paul!

Michael Welling3:14 PM
bitbang all things

question

how do you manage power?

limor3:14 PM
Boian, sure! we hvae code in C/C++ and python

limor3:14 PM
(and typescript/makecode)

Orlando Hoilett3:14 PM
What's the driver current on the platform?

what @Orlando Hoilett said

limor3:15 PM
OMG THE POWER IS THE BEST PART
ATMakers - Bill Binko joined  the room.3:15 PM

limor3:15 PM
im aos glad u asked!!!

limor3:15 PM
robotic power is really hard

limor3:15 PM
its the biggest challenge

limor3:15 PM
buck was a little to pricey and i wasnt so sure buck converters are able to keep up with the super spiky robotic needs

limor3:15 PM
so i decided to force 5V

limor3:15 PM
THATS IT

limor3:15 PM
soemine is gonna say

ATMakers - Bill Binko3:16 PM
I love that I was able to do a project using the rPi with just connecting the i2c lines

limor3:16 PM
I HAVE A PIC NAD I WAND 12 V

limor3:16 PM
nope

limor3:16 PM
not for u!

limor3:16 PM
5V ONLY

limor3:16 PM
this covers all servos, DC hobby motors including popular TT gearbox, there are 5V steppers as well

limor3:16 PM
AND we use this TI chip i cant remember the full part number

limor3:16 PM
its like TPS6592xetcw=soething here

limor3:16 PM
and its a new chip

limor3:16 PM
and its AWESOME

Todd3:17 PM
Nice, only 5V!

limor3:17 PM
its CHEAP, 4A current management

limor3:17 PM
eFUse so it will cut off if too much current

limor3:17 PM
AND also overvoltage

limor3:17 PM
the overvotl part is a total pain to manage

limor3:17 PM
but this chip cn take up to 16v and will light up an LED to let you know that you've overvolted

limor3:17 PM
and it wont pass the high voltage to your delikate tronix

Michael Welling3:18 PM
nice

limor3:18 PM
built in FETs too!

limor3:18 PM
amazing

Morning.Star3:18 PM
nice, noted :-)

Frank Buss3:18 PM
4A is not much for bigger robots, my copter uses a few dozen amps

limor3:18 PM
so thats the chip that kinda pulled it togehter

looking it up on Digikey now

ATMakers - Bill Binko3:18 PM
Hey Ladyada, can you explain why you didn't send the 5V up on the Feather board?  I assume it has to do w/ not wanting multiple 5-3V regulators, but I'd like to hear your thoughts on it. :-)

limor3:18 PM
frank, this isnt for bigger robots!

limor3:19 PM
bigger robots also tend to use 12V motors so - this is for crafts! and creative bots. and its cheap

Prof. Fartsparkle3:19 PM
For what it does 4A is plenty I'd say

ATMakers - Bill Binko3:19 PM
And for AT!

limor3:19 PM
also the motor driver has current limiting on ti, so you can stall motors safely!

is that power chip a bga?

limor3:19 PM
Bill, that is correct i didnt want to have the 5V 'contentsion' with the USB power

limor3:20 PM
so you can do what you did an grab 5V fro the neopixel terminal block

limor3:20 PM
sophi, nope! its a QFN-ish chip

limor3:21 PM
ok i think thats the Qs so far

limor3:21 PM
we're doing good 20 minutes

cool, thanks!

Javier3:21 PM
hi limor. i made robotics workshops in Chile(south america). this is my website http://roboticaenconce.cl/
can you give me some directions for improve my DIY KIT? aestethics and hardware...
http://roboticaenconce.cl/posts/RO101-armado-kit/

Kris Winer3:21 PM
I've been using the APA102 addressable rgb leds; they are really small and bright. Thanks for showing me the way--I found them on your site!

Frank Buss3:22 PM
cute bots :-)

Orlando Hoilett3:22 PM
Did I miss the answer for the output current capability? I think I heard someone say 4A in the chat.

@Javier we're talking about CRICKIT today in the Hack Chat

Morning.Star3:22 PM
:-D

Javier3:22 PM
ok. no problem i waitant until end

Joshua Young3:22 PM
Where is the best place to find cool Cricket builds

Javier3:22 PM
wait*

limor3:22 PM
orlando, its 4A THRU the power supply total

limor3:23 PM
the motor drivers are 1A each limited and the ULN are 500mA per

Prof. Fartsparkle3:23 PM
here is the datasheet for the power ic http://www.ti.com/lit/ds/symlink/tps2595.pdf

limor3:23 PM
of course you cant have EVERYTHING on ALL at once but you can pick and choose

Matt Lipschutz3:23 PM
Did anyone find the exact part number for that PMIC?  Schematic calls it out as tps259x3

brentru3:23 PM
@Joshua Young  check out the Adafruit Learning System: https://learn.adafruit.com/search?q=crickit&

Matt Lipschutz3:23 PM
awesome thanks @Prof. Fartsparkle

ATMakers - Bill Binko3:23 PM
Can you go over the sinking outputs?  Voltage, how to wire, etc?

Orlando Hoilett3:23 PM
@limor  Got it. Thanks.

limor3:23 PM
for SUPER SEKRETE HIGH POWER you can alwyas 'back feed' thru the Noepixel port 5V 10A

limor3:23 PM
but we dont recommend it cause you're skipping thru the power protection

limor3:23 PM
and that could end badly!

is this is?

Orlando Hoilett3:24 PM
Ah makes sense.

Orlando Hoilett3:24 PM
Thanks.

limor3:24 PM
the PMIC has a lot of variants, so check the DS for your desired config

thanks @Prof. Fartsparkle for the datasheet

joel3:25 PM
I downloaded the Circuit Python file for CRICKIT, but I can't get the Circuit Python file to open.

ATMakers - Bill Binko3:26 PM
If you have the tiny SeeSaw board to show, I love that as a rPi add-on!

limor3:26 PM
another cool thing is  the seesaw has a voltage monitor and will blink the neopixel on bad power
Scott Webster joined  the room.3:26 PM

limor3:26 PM
@joel chek out our ciruitpython beginnger guides on how to install the circuitpython runtime on your CPX/feather

Prof. Fartsparkle3:26 PM
the protection features are really neat

OH HEY THERE IS A GIVEAWAY

brentru3:26 PM
https://learn.adafruit.com/welcome-to-circuitpython?view=all#installing-circuitpython

ADAFRUIT

Overview | Welcome to CircuitPython! | Adafruit Learning System
There are many amazing things about your new board. One of them is the ability to run CircuitPython. You may have seen that name on the Adafruit site somewhere. Not sure what it is? We can help!

Read this on Adafruit

pt3:26 PM
@joel https://learn.adafruit.com/welcome-to-circuitpython

brentru3:26 PM
oof pt is fast

who wants to build something with CRICKIT?

Orlando Hoilett3:27 PM
*raises hand

email me sophi@hackaday.com

Todd3:27 PM
YES!

ATMakers - Bill Binko3:27 PM
Can you go over the sinking outputs?  Voltage, how to wire, etc?

email me with your address and what you're going to build sophi@hackaday.com

limor3:27 PM
yah sinking oututs are confusing to begineners

limor3:28 PM
basically you cannot send a high voltage OUT you can only set/connect the pin to ground, as it were

Prof. Fartsparkle3:28 PM
will the pi crickit have an epprom wtih dt to configure the RPI IOs at boot?
Jessie joined  the room.3:28 PM

limor3:28 PM
so you if you have a solenoid, connect the 5V form the board terminals to one side, and ground would go into one of the ULN2003's

limor3:28 PM
theres are alot of ULNxxxx guides out there

limor3:28 PM
and this is basically identical

ATMakers - Bill Binko3:28 PM
In all cases, the grounds have to be common, right?

limor3:29 PM
there are not io's used on the rpi really, its all thru i2c - so you set it up all thru python but we'll take alook

Prof. Fartsparkle3:29 PM
but is i2c on by default?

Prof. Fartsparkle3:29 PM
I thought it was disabled like spi

limor3:29 PM
ive had really mixed epxeriences with DTO = i sorta perfer a shell script

ATMakers - Bill Binko3:29 PM
Prof. yes - their guide says how to enable it

limor3:29 PM
the DTO stuff is just not very well documented

pt3:29 PM
this questions came on from live vid chat "Do DC motors share power with the cricket? Is so, is it possible to break the connection and power them seperately?"

Prof. Fartsparkle3:29 PM
thats true unfortunately

pt3:29 PM
and "Will Pi Hat be stackable to add more PWM for servos over i2c?"

limor3:30 PM
since you have to isntall anyways, having a shell script run the rpi-config command is easier to debug/understand/improve

limor3:30 PM
all my DTO stuff, ive had to revise and update as new Pi's came out and stuff chagned with linux

limor3:30 PM
so...nobody really uses it excpet for Rpi foundation cause they dictate the design anyays :)

Prof. Fartsparkle3:30 PM
ah that sucks, interesting to know though

Boian Mitov3:31 PM
Check your direct chat messages in the Hackaday.IO later ;-) I have tried to contact you few times over the last year ;-)

limor3:31 PM
for DC motors yeah its pwered the ruthe crickit, you can always just connect a DC motor to pwer but then you wouldnt be able to control the speeds and direction

limor3:31 PM
so we recommend using the motor ports! there's two

limor3:31 PM
for more servos on pi - we really recommend stacking on our servo bonnet or hat, they dont conflict over i2c and then you get 16 more1

ATMakers - Bill Binko3:32 PM
Will the hat allow stackable headers though?

ATMakers - Bill Binko3:32 PM
Everyone should remember, this is a $30 kit!  And it's awesome!

Matt Lipschutz3:32 PM
*LOVE* the bento analogy.

limor3:33 PM
bill - yep the HATs and bonnets we make now have the skinny SMT heaers with pass thru holes

limor3:33 PM
youc an slip the stackign header thru !

ATMakers - Bill Binko3:33 PM
Yay!

Frank Buss3:33 PM
PocketBeagle might be better for it, because of the real time PRU units

limor3:34 PM
more QUESTIONS!

Prof. Fartsparkle3:34 PM
slightly unrelated but now that you mentioned smt headers, why aren't you using smt header more often?

limor3:34 PM
i think we got thru them so far

Orlando Hoilett3:34 PM
What's the coolest thing you've mad with the CRICKIT so far?

limor3:34 PM
we have used them in the past

Orlando Hoilett3:34 PM
Or what would you really like to see someone make?

limor3:34 PM
but i get annoyed with how they bend easily

and what big projects are coming up?

limor3:35 PM
we have a selective machine so thru hole works reallllly well and if we can, we perfer them

Prof. Fartsparkle3:35 PM
ah ok so they aren't really cheaper to assemble for you?

limor3:35 PM
pt sez "weve seen a self balancing bot, a bumper car - we like how EASY it is. the simplicity is what we like."

limor3:36 PM
its easy to spend $600 on a humanoid bot and have it dance ;)

limor3:36 PM
its hard to do Engineerin as in - the quality and cost are optimized

limor3:36 PM
pt is also planning on making a climbing-racoon simulator

ATMakers - Bill Binko3:37 PM
We will absolutely be using Crickits for automating various stuff (door openers, etc.) for Asssistive Technology users.

limor3:37 PM
we like TRASH BOTs

limor3:37 PM
it doesnt matter if it doesnt work - its just recycle bin stuff!

OK so some people have emailed ideas for the giveaway

limor3:37 PM
the crickit can do 2 steppers so i have a etchasketch drawbot im workin on

SPACE PIRATES

a couple of self driving cars

Stephen Tranovich3:38 PM
+1 space pirates

Todd3:38 PM
+1 for Space Pirates

a Roomba like thing

Scott Webster3:38 PM
Turn the camera sideways and do a Batman climb!

brentru3:38 PM
+1 for crickit roomba

fetch jellybeans and throw  them!!

Prof. Fartsparkle3:40 PM
I always had the same issue with robotics, the typical stuff you start with is just kinda *meh*

limor3:40 PM
no more questiosn it seems?

Todd3:40 PM
Add  red lasers to room like device to annoy cat.

Scott Webster3:40 PM
Ha, yeah add face detection to shoot jellybeans at your mouth.

Morning.Star3:40 PM
Heh :-D

what more can you tell us about the hardware... did we miss anything?

Todd3:40 PM
*roomba

Arsenijs3:40 PM
You can just ask questions here, right?

ðeshipu3:40 PM
are there going to be smaller versions for smaller robots?

yes

ask questions here

ATMakers - Bill Binko3:40 PM
Love that idea - anyone know of an easy way to convert SVG to G-Code?

limor3:40 PM
bill - inkscape

Joshua Young3:41 PM
yes

limor3:41 PM
it sux and is annoying the first time but it works

ATMakers - Bill Binko3:41 PM
Inkscape is my jam!  (We have 36,000 images all through Inkscape)... there's a g-code export?  Awesome

Joshua Young3:41 PM
or Fusion 360 for SVG to gcode.

limor3:41 PM
desi - no plans for smaller robot crickits - the HAT is pretty small

Al Williams3:41 PM
https://github.com/pjpscriv/py-svg2gcode

GITHUB

pjpscriv/py-svg2gcode
py-svg2gcode - An .svg to .gcode converter

Read this on GitHub

limor3:42 PM
any less and we'd have to drop some of the capability

Al Williams3:42 PM
Although Inkscape, yes. With some limits

ATMakers - Bill Binko3:42 PM
And the seesaw board is tiny... you can use that + your own power stuff

limor3:42 PM
we have various motoro controller wings and breakouts but its only one motor

pt3:42 PM
(from vid chat) "what is the mechanism for the moving mouth? looks too vertical for a servo, dont see any swinging lol"

Frank Buss3:42 PM
but I guess the circuit is open source hardware, so you could take a look how it works and use it in own boards?

Scott Webster3:43 PM
Inkscape has 'gcodetools' under 'extensions'.

limor3:43 PM
yep! please make variants :) its open source hardware - files on github

Prof. Fartsparkle3:43 PM
https://github.com/adafruit/Adafruit_Crickit_PCBs

GITHUB

adafruit/Adafruit_Crickit_PCBs
Adafruit_Crickit_PCBs - PCB files for the Adafruit Crickit Boards

Read this on GitHub

Nakul Rao3:43 PM
What other platforms do you plan to support on the crickit? If any?

limor3:43 PM
one of my fav things is audio robotis

Prof. Fartsparkle3:43 PM
I often take adafruit designs as a starting point

ATMakers - Bill Binko3:43 PM
Any desire to include a linear servo / actuator in the store?  For when a Popsicle won't cut it? :-)

I often take adafruit designs as a starting point too

limor3:44 PM
with the wave playback support in circuitpy its soooo seasy to make audio payback robots. thats something RELALY hard on most  platforums unless you skip to linux

pt3:44 PM
@Nakul Rao "all" in some way, or at least "most" arduino, pi, feather, cpx, particle, etc, etc

Prof. Fartsparkle3:44 PM
the main reason why I'm really grateful that Adafruit exists, all those open design are tremendously helpful

TWO CRICKIT left!

email me sophi@hackaday.com with your idea

limor3:45 PM
nakul, right now we have Circuit playground and Feather. coming soon is microbit and raspi

limor3:45 PM
no other plans right now - we think that covers a lot!

Nakul Rao3:45 PM
Glad to see raspi in that list

Frank Buss3:45 PM
I wanna make a Westworld bot :-)

I want the claw

pt3:46 PM
from vid chat "does the crickit do rotary encoders? I started looking at dedicated quadrature chips a while ago but got lost..."

Arsenijs3:46 PM
@limor , does circuitpython actually support esp8266 as a target? we tried it at a hackathon recently, but most of the tools, it seemed, were targeted on something that'd actually enumerate as a disk drive

Arsenijs3:47 PM
I was hoping for a graphical editor-like tool that'd also integrate ampy

paging @Boian Mitov

ATMakers - Bill Binko3:47 PM
And you've got the adapter for Teensy->Feather

Prof. Fartsparkle3:47 PM
oh yea +1 for that encoder question

Arsenijs3:47 PM
Mu Editor looked like what we needed, but it could never detect our CircuitPython-flashed ESP8266

limor3:48 PM
we do absolutely support esp8266 as a target but as you have seen you need a lot of skill to use it

limor3:48 PM
mu is not the best tool because you have to use ampy by hand

Boian Mitov3:48 PM
Well... if you are interested, we can work together to make the programming even easier ;-) . I add as much support for your modules in Visuino as I can, but if you send me some more modules, I can see to support them too. It is hard to beat Visuino in terms of ease of use IMHO ;-)
mtd091571 joined  the room.3:48 PM

limor3:48 PM
check otu the pycharm editor

Scott Webster3:48 PM
Thonny?

limor3:49 PM
it has some sort of upload tool built in

Arsenijs3:49 PM
Ohh. I was hoping that I could have a low-entry-level graphical setup for ESP8266, for younglings

Arsenijs3:49 PM
Something like Arduino IDE, but MicroPython

pt3:49 PM
@Boian Mitov will do :)

limor3:49 PM
but it totally works ive written code myself on esp826 circuitpy with commandline

Boian Mitov3:49 PM
Visuino supports ESP8266 :-)

Frank Buss3:49 PM
there is already a nice gaming platform, programmable in Python, no need to develop another one:
https://hackaday.io/project/27629-game

Boian Mitov3:49 PM
You can program ESP8266 graphically extremely easy ;-)

limor3:49 PM
@Arsenijs the ESP8266 doesnt have USB mass storage os its not drag and drop - but if you want to contribute a patch to Mu they love to take PRs

limor3:49 PM
and will absolutely integrate it

Arsenijs3:50 PM
Last time I had a team member try out the ampy&external editor combination, it was messy

Boian Mitov3:50 PM
I already support drag and drop programming for ESP8266 :-)

limor3:50 PM
yep not having USB native makes that tough! thats why we recommend the samd21 and 51 - you get HID/MSD/HID

Arsenijs3:50 PM
Alright, understood! Hopefully, there's an Arduino IDEesque environment sometime soon =)

limor3:50 PM
pease ask espressif to add native USB

Matt3:50 PM
Hi guys, new here and following along.

limor3:50 PM
if they do we will TOTALLY support it!

limor3:51 PM
for example nordic added native usb, so now we support that :)

WooDWorkeR3:51 PM
wasnt there a project here on hackaday where people wanted to create a esp board that does programming via "flashdrive"?

Hi @Matt

limor3:51 PM
but if its not in the chip, we cant

Arsenijs3:51 PM
Not sure ESP USB is going to happen anytime soon though, so we're left with what we have =)

Prof. Fartsparkle3:51 PM
@Woo@WooDWorkeR  @ðeshipu was trying to something going in that direction

limor3:51 PM
yep - please ask espressif to do it! they listen to the community - if enough people ask they'll add a USB core :)

Arsenijs3:52 PM
@Boian Mitov we were trying to decrease the bus factor, so picked languages that at least two team members knew

Matt Lipschutz3:52 PM
@PT I would love to hear more about some of those ideas- I have been asked to create similar classes up here in Vermont.

ATMakers - Bill Binko3:52 PM
Phil, we can totally help you find the right person for that.  FIRST is where we find our AT Makers teams :-)

WooDWorkeR3:52 PM
was the idea to put a small micro on it that does the flashdrive and programming

Arsenijs3:52 PM
I mean, a Mu Editor patch is definitely cheaper =D

Boian Mitov3:52 PM
@Arsenijs Visuino can be learned in 2-3 minutes ;-)

Paul Stoffregen3:52 PM
anyone could make a ESP board with another USB microcontroller to do MSC - but it probably won't end up cheap like normal ESP boards

pt3:52 PM
@Matt Lipschutz email me! pt@adafruit.com
JustTheDazz joined  the room.3:53 PM

Arsenijs3:53 PM
@Boian Mitov would it handle making a device that 1) serves a webpage 2) can then handle websocket communications?

ATMakers - Bill Binko3:53 PM
4H has a "Junk Drawer" robotics curriculum

limor3:53 PM
@Arsenijs yah! please join in the Mu editor github repo, they're super welcoming :)

ðeshipu3:54 PM
the problem with using trash for projects is that they are hard to reproduce, unless you can get the same trash

Boian Mitov3:54 PM
@Arsenijs yes :-) In no time :-)
https://www.instructables.com/id/ESP8266-and-Visuino-GPS-Location-Web-Server-With-G/

Arsenijs3:54 PM
That's great, will look into it!

Boian Mitov3:54 PM
https://www.instructables.com/id/Remote-Wi-Fi-DHT11-Temperature-an-Humidity-I2C-2-X/

INSTRUCTABLES.COM BOIANM

Remote Wi-Fi DHT11 Temperature and Humidity I2C 2 X 16 LCD Display With Two ESP8266 and Visuino
ESP8266 modules are great low cost stand alone controllers with built in Wi-Fi, and I already made a simple Blink instructable with ESP8266 NodeMCU module. The advantage of the ESP8266 over Arduino and other controllers is the builtin Wi-Fi.

Read this on Instructables.com

pt3:54 PM
from vid chat "Are there jumpers for changing the I2C address of the seesaw on Crickit? Might be useful for larger projects to connect a few together."

ATMakers - Bill Binko3:54 PM
John Park's show yesterday was great :-)

Prof. Fartsparkle3:54 PM
@Paul Stoffregen the software part of that sounds not super trivial though. If you think its not too hard I'm sure this project would love your help :D
https://hackaday.io/project/58788-esp8266-with-true-usb

limor3:55 PM
we dindt expose i2c address straps cause we ran outta pins BUT you can recompile the seesaw core and just change the #define

limor3:55 PM
its on github and uses arm-gcc super easy to build

Paul Stoffregen3:55 PM
@Prof. Fartsparkle - maybe someday when I'm not working on Teensy stuff....

CRICKIT is very impressive

thank you!

limor3:56 PM
thanks sophie

limor3:56 PM
oops  -e

ATMakers - Bill Binko3:56 PM
Crickit rocks - the fact that I could get it running off the rPi in 2 days was awesome! (I'm not that good!)

Arsenijs3:56 PM
But only 5V I2C comms, am I not mistaken?

limor3:56 PM
4 minutes remaining!

also thank you for the giveaway, that was really nice of you!

Paul Stoffregen3:56 PM
congrats Limor & Phil - great robotics platform :-)

Arsenijs3:56 PM
(or maybe I misread)

limor3:56 PM
arse, nope its 3.3V logic

limor3:56 PM
the motor POWER is 5V

Arsenijs3:56 PM
oh okay, sorry then =)

pt3:56 PM
thanks @Paul Stoffregen it's been 30 years in the making

limor3:56 PM
paul, thanks! you can even use it with teensy!

pt3:56 PM
'(showing that on vid now)

ATMakers - Bill Binko3:56 PM
I love that you called him Arse :-)

limor3:57 PM
sorry gotta type fast!!

Arsenijs3:57 PM
Got used to it by now =D

Jessie3:57 PM
Thank You for having the giveaway as well this discussion

Arsenijs3:57 PM
The giveaway is over, BTW?

ATMakers - Bill Binko3:57 PM
So, I went hunting for Capsela on Ebay after your show... NOTHING!  You picked them clean :-)

giveaway is over @Arsenijs sorry

Arsenijs3:58 PM
No probs =)

JustTheDazz3:58 PM
Not sure if anyone has asked this yet, but is there or will there be a way to program the feather boards via wireless (bt or wifi)?

pt3:58 PM
@Arsenijs we give away stuff on the weekly shows on adafruit so look for them there too

limor3:58 PM
@JustTheDazz - with nrf52 you can use OTA with the nordic OTA bootloaders

Arsenijs3:58 PM
Yay!

Prof. Fartsparkle3:59 PM
I think the question about encoder support on the cricket hasn't been answered yet?

limor3:59 PM
and of course ESP has their own wireless methods, just check the programming language and framework

ATMakers - Bill Binko3:59 PM
Yes, I'd like that answer too on the rotary encoder

limor3:59 PM
for exampe mongoose or thread or whatnot

pt3:59 PM
@Prof. Fartsparkle (thanks getting to that now)

limor3:59 PM
ciruicptyhon 3.0 RC has rotaryio support!

limor3:59 PM
you get up to 8 rotatry encoders

Prof. Fartsparkle3:59 PM
nice!

limor3:59 PM
all done fro you in the background with interrupts/timers you just query the 16 bit (?) incrementer

ATMakers - Bill Binko4:00 PM
Sweet!

limor4:00 PM
seesaw does not AT THIS TIME support encoders

limor4:00 PM
cause we wanted to release

BUT its super ez to upgrade seesaw, it has a uf2 bootloader - so we may in the future add rotary management over the signal I/O for up to 4 rotaries

limor4:00 PM
or motor encoders

limor4:00 PM
we wanted to get the platform and libraries done first

Prof. Fartsparkle4:01 PM
I really dig the concept of what seesaw is

ATMakers - Bill Binko4:01 PM
So... today, does Crickit support them on any of the platforms?  Or is that after the update?

limor4:01 PM
circkit does not. the CPX/feather does

ATMakers - Bill Binko4:01 PM
Gotcha!

limor4:01 PM
so just use the native io

ATMakers - Bill Binko4:02 PM
Thank you guys!

limor4:02 PM
of course!

Arsenijs4:02 PM
Thank you!