Adafruit Circuit Playground Express

This is an amazing starter board. Packed full of sensors, it’s easy to get up and running! I’ve used it for many projects and love it — it’s a great starter board and you can create fun wearables with it.

I’ve made a hat with temperature sensing, servo-moving axial fan, and UV light sensor readings.

I’ve also made a ‘touch together’ project — you can learn how to make that and others in The Ultimate Guide to Informed Wearables — that plays music when two people wear sleeves and touch their arms together. It uses conductive fabrics with the Circuit Playground’s capacitive touch pads.

Description

Circuit Playground Express is the next step towards a perfect introduction to electronics and programming. We’ve taken the original Circuit Playground Classic and made it even better — not only did we pack in even more sensors, we also made it even easier to program.

Start your journey with Microsoft MakeCode block-based or JavaScript programming. Then use the same board to try CircuitPython, with the Python interpreter running right on the Express. As you progress, advance to Arduino IDE, which has full support of all the hardware down to the low level. You can even use Code.org CS Discoveries to learn all about coding right in your browser!

Check out Adafruit’s detailed guide with a tour of Circuit Playground Express and details on getting started using MakeCode, CircuitPython, Code.org CS Discoveries or Arduino!

Because you can program the same board in 4 different ways, the Express has great value and re-usability. From beginners to experts, Circuit Playground Express has something for everyone.

The board is round and has alligator-clip pads around it so you don’t have to solder or sew to make it work. You can power it from USB, a AAA battery pack, or a LiPoly battery (for advanced users). Built-in USB means you plug it in to program it and it just shows up — no special cable or adapter required.

What’s Built In

• 10 × mini NeoPixels, each one can display any colour
• 1 × Motion sensor (LIS3DH triple-axis accelerometer with tap & free-fall detection)
• 1 × Temperature sensor (thermistor)
• 1 × Light sensor (phototransistor) — can also act as colour sensor and pulse sensor
• 1 × Sound sensor (MEMS microphone)
• 1 × Mini speaker with class D amplifier (7.5 mm magnetic speaker/buzzer)
• 2 × Push buttons, labelled A and B
• 1 × Slide switch
• Infrared receiver and transmitter — can receive/transmit remote control codes and send messages between Circuit Playground Expresses; can also act as proximity sensor
• 8 × alligator-clip friendly I/O pins (I2C, UART, 8 analog inputs, multiple PWM outputs)
• 7 pads as capacitive touch inputs + 1 true analog output
• Green “ON” LED and red “#13” LED for basic blinking
• Reset button
• ATSAMD21 ARM Cortex M0 processor @ 3.3 V / 48 MHz
• 2 MB SPI Flash storage (primarily for CircuitPython code and libraries)
• MicroUSB port for programming and debugging (can act as serial port, keyboard, mouse, joystick, or MIDI)