And here we have the very last projects from this year’s PiHut’s Maker Advent Calendar – Let it Glow. Today we are making use of the LCD screen that came in box 12 along with the string of RGB lights and the temperature sensor from previous boxes.

As part of the design of the calendar there are two double width boxes for day one and 12 leading you to assume (correctly) that you get double the goodies in these. While you don’t actually get double the contents you do get double the value as these boxes contain higher cost items. … Read the rest

The final box of this year’s PiHut’s Maker Advent Calendar – Let it Glow. Today is a big box like the first and similarly, this contains a big item. Have a look at the video to see what’s included and check back tomorrow for the final video going through the projects making use of this very special item!

Day Twelve included the following:

• 1x 16×2 LCD (with I2C backpack)
• 4x Male to female jumper wires

Today’s projects had strong ZX Spectrum vibes. When I was a youth I used to hammer the spongy keyboard of first the ZX81 and then the ZX Spectrum writing programs in BASIC. The Spectrum keyboard was particularly difficult as it had multiple functions on each key. The 4-way membrane keypad included in box 11 very much reminded me of the Spectrum. Oh, happy days!

As you will see from the video below we are now combining the contents from several boxes to create interesting projects. The last one today, as you will see from the video, doesn’t include any … Read the rest

We’ve reached the penultimate day of this year’s PiHut’s Maker Advent Calendar – Let it Glow and today it is another non-light item in the box. Have a look at the video below to see what’s included.

Day Eleven included the following:

• 1x 4-way membrane keypad
• 1x 5-way extra-long header strip
• 5x Male to male jumper wires

🎵It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas🎶

Back to the land of lighting today with a 15-LED addressable RGB dot strip from box ten. Like the circle LED light from day eight this has multiple LEDs each of which can be accessed individually to change its colour and intensity. This strip light looks and feels very much like the LED lights that you get for your Christmas tree and the projects reflected that today.

Have a look at the video below which runs through most of the projects.

We’re back in the land of lights again today after yesterday’s foray into the land of temperature sensors. But what’s in box ten? Let’s take a look and see…

Day Ten included the following:

• 1x 15-LED addressable RGB dot strand

As you will have seen from yesterday’s video the surprise in box nine was a temperature sensor. This initially seemed a bit strange for an advent calendar based around things that light up but makes absolute sense when you see the project for it.

We are pairing the temperature sensor with the ring LED that we used in the day eight project. Have a look at the project in action in the following video.

This project was slightly different than previous ones in that it needed to have a third-party library installed on the Pico to interact with the … Read the rest

Inside box nine was a bit of a surprise – it wasn’t something that lit up! It was a surprise as this year’s advent calendar is called “Let it Glow” in reference to it being all things that light up. So what was in the box? Have a look at the video below and check back tomorrow to see it in action!

Day Nine included the following:

• 1x DHT20/AHT20 temperature and humidity sensor
• 4x Male to male jumper wires

Yesterday’s box included a 12-LED RGB Ring which looked amazing and I was keen to get cracking with the associated projects.

As you can see from the video below the projects included lighting the LEDs in a number of interesting ways and changing the colours.

One thing I have noticed about the RGB ring is that colours can be very weak and watery tending towards white. I am not sure if this is a property of the ring itself or the colours chosen in the code. I am going to have a bit of a play with it to see … Read the rest

There was a nice surprise waiting for me inside the box for day eight. Take a look at the video below for details and then view the parts list below.

I have to say that I am looking forward to trying out the projects for this one!

Day Eight included the following:

• 1x 12-LED RGB Ring
• 3x Male to male jumper wires