Circuit Playground is an Arduino-like education development board from Adafruit, designed around an Atmel ATmega32u4 MPU – as used in the firm’s earlier Flora board.
The round 51mm diameter board has 14 croc-clip pads for easy access to power and I/O, with the eight non-power pads doubling-up as capacitive touch sensors.
Programming based on the Arduino integrated development environment is through the built-in micro-USB port.
It also offers built-in USB HID (human interface device class) support, so the board can act like a mouse or keyboard for an attached PC.
Built-in devices include:
- 10 RGB LEDs (NeoPixels, just in-board of the croc-clip pads),
- a red ‘pin13’ LED for blinking,
- a green power LED,
- two push buttons,
- a reset button,
- a slide switch,
- a micro-loudspeaker,
- a temperature sensor,
- a light sensor and
- a MEMS microphone.
“The board’s triple-axis accelerometer detects tilt, gravity, and motion, as well as tap and double tap strikes on the board,” said Mouser Electronics, which is stocking the board.
It runs from 3.3V, and an on-board regulator allows it to be powered from: USB, 3x AAA cells, or a rechargeable Li-poly cell for mobile projects such as wearables.
