 This month on Maker Update, rolling your own slot machine, a robot pal, a mask that doesn't hide your face, a brake light for your bicycle, and building your first game in CircuitPython. Hello and welcome back to the Adaford Edition of Maker Update. It's July, summer is finally here, and who knows what kind of weirdness this month is going to bring us. I hope you're doing everything you can to stay safe and sane out there. If working on projects is what helps you do that, then we've got a great show lined up for you. So let's get started with the project of the month. Sometimes you see a project that pulls together a large number of recent tips and techniques and tosses them all together. Combining the enormous 64x32 RGB LED matrix from last month's episode, this clever mechanical spring-loaded lever, and a sheet of black LED acrylic from TAP Plastics to disguise and diffuse the matrix. If you haven't seen this black LED acrylic, get ready for this to be your new favorite project material. On its own, it looks like a standard sheet of black 1.8 inch acrylic with a slightly matte finish, but when illuminated from behind, the acrylic sheet lights up, transmitting both the light and its color through the acrylic sheet. The material acts like a pretty standard diffuser, so for this project, the sheet is kept close to the matrix so the image doesn't become too blurred. The circuit is pretty simple. There's a Feather M4 Express running the show, and it's wired into a PAM8302 audio amplifier for playback of a few sound samples. They're also using the RGB Matrix Feather Wing to drive the LED matrices. Typical of the Rue Wies brothers, they've also supplied files for the 3D printed parts. Because most of the structure is provided by the Matrix, the part list is pretty small, but because of the size, your printer will need to be able to print parts as large as 265mm. You can find STLs for the printed parts, the bill of materials, and the code following the link down in the description. Time for the news! Seed Studio recently released the WIO Terminal. The WIO Terminal is an enclosed IoT device that features a 2.4-inch LCD screen, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth support, and plenty more. But the real treat here is its AT-SAMD-51 microcontroller, so it offers full support for Circuit Python and the Arduino IDE. It's also jam-packed with sensors, so this should make a great starting point for a number of different projects. And in case you missed it, after spending weeks just focusing on producing PPE and lifesaving electronics, Adafruit is back open for business and ready to process your orders. I've placed two orders with them in June already. They're still giving some preference to COVID essential orders, but if you're in a rush, every product in Adafruit also has a direct link to order it via DigiKey. Go buy cool stuff and then make cool stuff! Back to more projects, John Park has created this 3D-printed desktop companion for everyone's favorite Robobrow, Pathfinder from Apex Legends. It's got a pretty lengthy bill of materials, and this project isn't for the faint of heart. There's a pie portal in Pathfinder's chest that replicates the character's own screen display, as well as driving his interactions. A single Neopixel illuminates his eye. It's a great project, and a cool opportunity to celebrate a remarkable character. Aaron St. Blaine has this tutorial for making a no-sew face mask that features a window for your mouth. It might seem superfluous, but windows like these are really important in helping convey your emotion through your facial expression. More than that, deaf and hard of hearing people can better read your mouth movements, allowing for easier communication. And facial expression is a huge part of communication in American Sign Language. Face masks that allow the ability to see the wearer's mouth are huge equalizers in accessibility. And so is this project. Since all the seams are made using E6800 glue, you don't even need a sewing machine or sewing skills to build it. Just some tea towels and a transparent plastic cup. CircuitPython and Adafruit hardware are becoming an increasingly competent game development platform for simple games. Liz Clark built this Blinka Jump game for the Pie Badge, and it takes its inspiration directly from the internet offline game built into the Google Chrome browser. If you want to try this project at home, there isn't much more to do and then get your hands on the necessary hardware and load in the code. Still, it's cool to see what you can do with CircuitPython. This month's community project is one that's been on my brain for a while now. How to build an interactive brake light for a bicycle. Dylan Harada used the Neopixels and the accelerometer of the Circuit Playground Express to build the taillight for his bicycle that lights up when he's braking. The code constantly pulls the accelerometer for what looks like a deceleration of the board. If it builds up enough likely candidates, the brake lights come on. It's an elegant solution and a lot easier than rigging up a toggle switch to your brake lever. Now for some tips and tools. If you've been wanting to add a display and a custom UI to your portable Raspberry Pi projects, look no further than this 1.3 inch TFT display bonnet. Catney Rembore has a comprehensive guide up for it that helps you through the process of installing and using the display. There's the easy way to install it that just has you driving the display through Python. But if you want it to run as a full display with access to the frame buffer, you'd need to do it the hard way, which involves installing a kernel module. The bonnet also includes a pair of tactile switches and a five-way joystick. You may have heard there's a new camera module out for the Raspberry Pi, the high quality camera. Really, it's just a sensor with an attachment for C-mount lenses that give you the option of some higher quality optics. The Ruiz brothers have published some designs that allow you to attach your Raspberry Pi to the lens mount. There's a skeletal frame that leaves the Pi exposed and a folding closure. This is just the printed files. There's no project or control interface for the camera. That part's still up to you, but it's a great start. If you'd like to learn more about how to build simple games in Circuit Python, don't miss this guide to creating your first tile map game with Circuit Python by Tim C. The guide covers the basics from installing Circuit Python, setting up your image maps, controlling the character, and developing the rules for your game as well as the content. There's a lot to chew through here, but it's a pretty incredible resource. For this month's 8 of Fruit product spotlight, check out the ISM330DHCX plus LAS3MDL Featherwing. This high precision, 9 degree of freedom IMU is one of the most powerful sensors available to makers now. The accelerometer can report up to 16 Gs and the gyro can report at a resolution of up to 4000 DPS. There's an onboard, self-calibrating circuit that allows it to report accurately at temperatures from negative 40 to 105 degrees Celsius. There's an included stem connector so you can add it to your project without needing to stack it like a standard featherwing. It's available for $17.50 in the 8 of Fruit store. And that is going to do it for this month's show. Thank you so much for watching. As always, huge thanks to everyone 8 of Fruit for giving the show a home and all the other great work they do. Keep working on cool projects and we'll see you in August. Take care.