Last year, I completed the 12 Projects of Codemas! Maker Advent Calendar from The Pi Hut. This year I’m back with their follow-up – Let it Glow! – dedicated to all things that light up, flash, illuminate and more!
- Follow along with the Calender: ThePiHut.com/Advent.
- Follow my progress below or on X, Instagram, Threads, BlueSky or YouTube.
Day #1: Let’s Get Started!
Monday 2nd December 2024
Today, we set-up the Raspberry Pi Pico H with Thonny and MicroPython.
Day #2: Lighting LEDs!
Wednesday 4th December 2024
Today, we wrote a little program to turn on the Pico’s onboard Green LED. The code also flashes the Red LED block ten times and then stops, waiting half a second between each flash.
Day #3: Incredible Inputs!
Friday 6th December 2024
Today, we wired a button circuit into our build. We controlled the LED block with the buttons and counted up and down depending on which button was pressed.
Day #4: Brilliant Bar Graphs!
Monday 9th December 2024
Today, we added a 5-segment bar graph to our build. Three code blocks were tested – an LED scanner like Knight Rider, random LEDs, and a counter using our button circuit from yesterday.
Day #5: Switch the DIP!
Wednesday 11th December 2024
Today, we added a “rat’s nest” of jumper wires and a 5-way DIP switch. We can now physically turn each LED on and off individually. Also, using functions we can run little programs for each DIP switch.
Day #6: See the RGB!
Friday 13th December 2024
Today, we reset the breadboard and added two addressable RGB LEDs. Creating loops in code to cycle the colours, add in fades, and pass the colour between the two LEDs.
Day #7: Time to Slide!
Sunday 15th December 2024
Today, we added a slide potentiometer “slider” to the build. We changed the LED colours, fades, and flash speed. We used the ADC pins on the Pico to turn the signal coming from the slider into digital.
