 It's that time again. This is Katney with your weekly Python on hardware news. Every week, we put together the Python for Microcontrollers newsletter. It is available through AdafruitDaily.com. Head over to sign up and see all of the past and current newsletters, or tune in each week to hear what's going on. Adafruit is continuing to operate as an essential business under New York City executive order to provide assistance with the COVID-19 outbreak. Most employees are working remotely, while a few are working in the Adafruit factory to help manufacture and ship desperately needed PPE to the surrounding areas and beyond. This week, Adafruit was highlighted in an article by UPS about small businesses taking the opportunity to make a difference in the fight against COVID-19. The article shares the stories of a few small businesses that have used their resources to change their focus, including Adafruit's aforementioned changes. Phil and LeMore continue to work to keep Adafruit a safe and clean place for those still coming into the factory. As long as we're able to get the resources, we'll continue to assemble face shields for distribution to local hospitals. Face shields are a crucial part of hospital PPE, and Adafruit is helping to ensure that those who require them have them available. Microsoft Garage announced device simulator express upgrade with Adafruit Clue and Python. The Microsoft interns have posted another upgrade to the device simulator express. The new version adds to the original Adafruit Circuit Playground Express Simulator with support for the BBC Microbit and the Adafruit Clue with Circuit Python. Device Simulator Express allows developers to use industry-like tools to program and simulate circuit boards. This is a great way to learn about Circuit Python and get a preview of a professional developer tool such as VS Code. Whether you have a little more downtime right now or trying to pick up a new skill or are looking for new ways to engage kids and students, you'll want to try out Device Simulator Express. You can download the free extension in the Visual Studio Marketplace. The Microsoft Garage intern team would love to hear feedback via GitHub. Adafruit has always been an open-source hardware company predating the open-source hardware association certification process. We have been busy submitting all of our hardware to Oshawa for certification. Adafruit is now the number one open-source certified company with 54 total boards currently certified. Adafruit wishes to thank the community and all the contributors to open-source software and hardware. And a special thanks to our customers for helping to demonstrate that you can release open-source hardware and software and be a good cause and a good business. This week, 12 new boards were certified, including the Adafruit DS1307 Realtime Clock, the Adafruit Metro M4, and the Adafruit Airlift Featherwing. The very last release of Python 2.7 is out. Python 2.7.18 just released is the last Python 2.7 release and therefore the last Python 2 release. Python 2.7 has been under active development since the release of Python 2.6 more than 11 years ago. Over all those years, CPython's core developers and contributors diligently applied bug fixes to the 2.7 branch, no small task as the Python 2 and 3 branches diverged. It is time for the CPython community to say a fond but firm farewell to Python 2. Check the Python.org developers mailing list for a detailed post. From the desk of Lady Aida comes two videos this week, both featuring Circuit Python. First, Lady Aida shows Circuit Python connecting through a cellular modem to a data source and displaying data on an OLED screen. Second, Lady Aida tests out a new PR, adding support for Hub 75 style RGB matrices to Circuit Python. This also honors Professor John Conway, who was an amazing mathematician who recently passed away. Conway's Game of Life uses simple rules on a matrix of data to create organic seeming life cycles. This 32 by 64 matrix is being driven by an Adafruit Feather M4 with SAMD 51, but includes support for the NRF 52840 as well. The PSF wants to thank the 40 sponsors who agreed to participate in PyCon 2020 online and the 418 individuals who donated and or converted their registration fees to donations. PyCon 2020 in Pittsburgh was canceled due to the COVID-19 outbreak and that impacted the Python Software Foundation's finances. On March 31st, they estimated that the PSF would need to use $627,000 of its financial reserve to get through 2020. Since that time, they have seen an overwhelming amount of support from sponsors and registrants. Thanks to the generosity of individual and corporate donors and decreasing PyCon 2020 expenses, the PSF now estimates that they will only need $141,713 from its financial reserve to get through 2020. That is 77% better than what was initially anticipated. Check out the PSF blog for more details. The Real Python podcast interviews Thea Flowers about her open source projects and how she got started with Circuit Python. Find it on realpython.com. Kevin samples and graphs an analog to digital controller in Circuit Python, measuring an old alkaline battery using Adafruit Clue. Learn how to build a standalone GPS logger using the particle xenon board, the Adafruit Ultimate GPS featherwing, and the OLED featherwing on MovingElectrons.net. King or North posts a video on building a grade crossing flasher using a Feather M4 Express and Circuit Python. Joey continues to work on his thermometer hat, which is programmed using Circuit Python. Simon posts to Twitter, reusing an old Python script of Conway's Game of Life, and modified it to run on the Circuit Python-powered PPU-M4. Code is available on GitHub. With a little bit of tweaking the Adafruit Circuit Python library, the MLX90640 IR sensor can be read using MicroPython on the PyCom Ypy 3.0. Learn how to build a tiny DIY MicroPython Arcade Cabinet with ESP32 that runs a simple game based on Atari's breakout. Details available on hackster.io. Methi's Hexapod Robot Simulator provides a Python, NumPy, and Plotly-based simulator for modeling hexapod robots. Check out Methi on GitHub to see the code and project status. PiBoy is a new Game Boy emulator written in Python, supporting macOS, Raspberry Pi, Linux, and Windows 10. Instructions and code are available on GitHub. Amanda posts 15 things you should know about lists in Python in an article on TowardsDataScience.com. Learn how to create an array using the array module in Python in a Guide to Arrays in Python on PyMyLifeUp.com. The number of Circuit Python-supported microcontrollers and single board computers grows every week. This week, there was one new board added to CircuitPython.org, the ClockworkPy. Are you interested in adding a new board to Circuit Python? Check out the Adafruit Learn system for a series of guides on getting your board added to CircuitPython and CircuitPython.org. There were three new Python on hardware-related guides in the Adafruit Learn system this week. First up, using a Nintendo Power Glove modified with an Adafruit Feather Sense running Circuit Python to make a BLE MIDI synth gesture controller in a guide from John Park. Liz Clark shows how to build a step counter using Circuit Python with Clue and its onboard accelerometers built-in pedometer. The guide includes a 3D printed case to make the project wearable. And learn how to create brilliant light displays using RGB LED panels with Circuit Python and the new Circuit Python RGB Matrix support, which includes support for these panels on SAMD 51 and NRF 52840 microcontroller boards. This guide from Jeff Appler and Phil Burgess includes multiple examples to get you started on your own RGB LED Matrix projects. The current number of Circuit Python libraries is 225. This week's new Circuit Python library is Adafruit CircuitPython BitBang I.O. As always, update your Circuit Python libraries, visit CircuitPython.org slash libraries and download the latest bundle. Included in this week's updates from the Circuit Python team, Brian wrapped up the LIS3DH library refactor to allow for the use of the H3LIS331 and LIS331HH, siblings of the LIS3DH. This type of refactor will likely become more and more common as sensor manufacturers look to expand their offerings by spinning off new products based on existing ones. Jeff continued work on RGB Matrix support in Circuit Python. The initial PR was accepted, but there's still more work to do to make the API easier to use. Here, he is testing the wiring for the Feather NRF52840 express. While the guide will focus on the Feather M4 express because it has a compatible shield and doesn't require custom wiring, it will also include wiring guidance for the Feather NRF52840 express and SENSE, ITSI-BITSI M4, and ITSI-BITSI NRF52840. Melissa wrote the SPI module for the external Circuit Python BitBang I.O. library. This is to manually flip the GPIO pins for boards that have neither the BitBang I.O. module or working hardware SPI. It actually worked well on Raspberry Pi but ran pretty slow on the Jetson Nano. It would still work for communicating with sensors. The library is on GitHub. She will be adding an I2C module to the library soon as well. Scott was provided a dump of the USB traffic for a fever scanner. He's been hacking on the protocol to extract the image and the maximum temperature. The goal is to build an open-source app to connect to the device rather than the proprietary Windows app that the manufacturer provides. Python US 2020 online has begun. Head over to the Python 2020 US remote page to sign up for updates or subscribe to the Python US 2020 YouTube channel. There are already several talks posted. Check it out on YouTube. Looking for more Python on hardware all week? Join the Adafruit community on Discord and check out the Help with Circuit Python and Circuit Python channels. We're over 18,000 strong and continuing to grow. You'll find a supportive, positive community filled with like-minded folks. Join at adafru.it slash discord. And that is your Python on hardware news for this week. Visit adafruitdaily.com to subscribe to the newsletter or tune in again next week.