Day 20

Beaded Necklace

Make a beautiful beaded necklace that will be the talk of your Holiday Party with the Circuit Playground Express.

I have never been good at wearable projects - mostly because I'm terrible at sewing, and conductive thread hates me. So for this project, I used the much more forgiving material of copper wire and beads instead of fabric, conductive thread and needles.

It still takes time, but if I can do it, then anyone can!

Duration: 2 hours

Materials

1 Adafruit Circuit Playground Express (https://www.adafruit.com/product/3333)
1 micro USB cable (not pictured, i.e. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B019C0BB9C)
1 small lipo battery (https://www.adafruit.com/product/1578) – note, these are rechargeable, so you may also want to invest in a charger for your battery too (https://www.adafruit.com/product/259)
4 Flora NeoPixels (https://www.adafruit.com/product/1260)
Thin copper wire (I used 26 gauge https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000IJYRKW)
Wire cutters (i.e. https://www.amazon.com/Hakko-CHP-170-Micro-Cutter/dp/B00FZPDG1K)
Needle nose pliers (i.e. https://www.amazon.com/SE-LF01-Professional-Quality-Needle/dp/B001BQF1AQ)
3-4 strands of beads – I used 6mm glass beads I got from my local craft store
Ribbon – to tie the ends of the necklace
Tape and/or double-sided tape – to tape on the battery pack

Note – I also use a piece of fabric on top of my working surface so my beads don’t roll around too much

--- MAKE ---

With the wire cutters, cut the following pieces of copper wire:

Six 7-inch pieces - these will be used for Power and Ground, and for the end loop of our necklace
Four 3-inch pieces - these will be used for the signal/data connections

Loop the ends of 4 of the long pieces of wire around the following pins on the Circuit Playground Express. When looking at the board with the battery port at the top:

GND on the top right (1 o’clock)
3.3V on the right (3 o’clock)
VOUT on the top left (11 o’clock)
GND on the left (9 o’clock)

When you’re looping the ends around the pins, wrap them around securely at least twice to form a good connection. Use the pliers to pull the ends tight and twist any extra length around the wire.

Now loop the ends of 2 of the short pieces of wire around the following pins on the Circuit Playgrounds Express:

Use the pliers to loop the wire around the pin holes at least twice tightly to form a secure connection

Thread 3 beads on the A1 and A6 wires
Thread 6 beads on the Ground and Power wires

Note: Bend the wires so your beads don’t fall off while you’re working

Now, attach the wires to the Flora NeoPixels.

First loop the end of the A6 wire to the Signal In --> pin on the Flora
Use the pliers to loop the wire around the pin hole at least twice tightly to form a secure connection
Use the wire cutters to clip off any excess wire

Connect the GND wire at the top right to the Negative – pin on the top of the Flora
And connect the 3.3V wire at the right to the Positive + pin on the bottom of the Flora
Use the pliers to loop the wire around the pin holes at least twice tightly to form a secure connection. But do not cut the wires.

Now on the other side, loop the end of the A1 wire to the Signal In --> pin on the Flora
Use the pliers to loop the wire around the pin holes at least twice tightly to form a secure connection
Use the wire cutters to clip off any excess wire
Connect the VOUT wire at the top left to the Positive + pin on the top of the Flora
And connect the GND wire at the left to the Negative – pin on the bottom of the Flora
Use the pliers to loop the wire around the pin holes at least twice tightly to form a secure connection. But do not cut the wires.

Now is a good time to test that your lights are connected correctly and working.

Connect your Circuit Playground Express to your computer by inserting one end of the micro USB cable into the silver port on the board, and the other end of the USB cable into your computer.

Note – Be careful not to touch the wires while the Circuit Playground Express is plugged in, and make sure your wires aren’t crossed over each other.

If the lights don’t immediately all turn green, press and release the Reset button in the middle of the board to turn all the lights green

Open this program (https://makecode.com/_MtgXgUKHhX1o) in your browser, and click Edit
Then click on the Download button to download the code to your Circuit Playground Express
Copy the circuitplayground-NecklaceTest.uf2 file from your Downloads folder to the CPLAYBOOT drive on your computer

You should see all your lights turn pink. If you don’t, check the connections to make sure the wires are securely looped around the pin holes. Also check that the right pins are connected.

Disconnect your Circuit Playground Express from the computer
Add 1 more Flora NeoPixel to each side of your necklace following the previous pattern: 3 beads for the Signal wire, and 6 beads for Ground and Power wires
You will need to use the last 2 short pieces of wire to connect the 2 Flora NeoPixels together via the Signal Out --> and Signal In --> pins.

This time, use the wire cutters to cut off the excess wire from the Ground and Power wires as well

Your finished electrical circuit necklace should look like this:

Using the last 2 pieces of long copper wire, string each of them through the last hole on the 2 outer Flora NeoPixels

Loop the wire around the pin hole once just to ensure it stays in place
String about 10 beads on each side of the wire
And loop the ends of the wire around itself to form a closed circle
Don’t worry if there’s a section of bare wire exposed – we’ll attach the ribbon there

Cut 2 lengths of about 20 inches of ribbon
Fold ribbon in half and loop around the end of the beaded copper wire
Tie in a knot to ensure the ribbon won’t fall off
Do the same for the other side

Attach the lipo battery cable to the battery port on the Circuit Playground Express. Note that the battery connection does fit in one way – with the groove at the top.

Using a piece of tape, tape down the battery cable to the back of the Circuit Playground Express so the battery cable doesn't show too much from the front

Using a piece of double-side sticky tape, affix the lipo battery to the back of the Circuit Playground Express, positioning it to hide the wires

Back of the Necklace:

To test that all 4 Flora NeoPixels are working correctly, connect your Circuit Playground Express to your computer via the micro USB cable
Open back up the same NecklaceTest program you were using before in MakeCode
This time, change the number of pixels on each of the A1 and A6 light strips to 2 (instead of 1)

Click the Download button, and copy the program file over to your Circuit Playground Express. Remember, you may need to press the Reset button to turn all the lights Green first.
All 4 Flora NeoPixel lights should be lighting up pink!
If you don’t see all 4 NeoPixels lighting up, check the connections to make sure the wires are securely looped around the pin holes, and that the correct pins are connected.

--- CODE ---

Phew! Hardest part is done! Now let's code our light animations.

With the Necklace Test example code above, we simply turned on all the lights of our necklace to one color. There are many different ways we can program our necklace lights. The loudness necklace (https://makecode.adafruit.com/tutorials/loudness-necklace) is one example where you can change the lights based on the sound level. In this project, we’ll program a few different animations to show on our necklace.

If you don’t already have it open, go to https://makecode.adafruit.com/
From the Home page, create New Project

At the bottom of the screen, name your project “Necklace”

First, we need to set up our 4 Flora NeoPixel lights as 2 strips of lights – connected to A1 on the left side, and connected to A6 on the right side.

From the Loops Toolbox drawer, drag out an On Start block to the Workspace

Click on the Light Toolbox drawer, then click on the NeoPixel drawer underneath it
Drag out the first Set strip block onto the Workspace and drop into the On Start block

In the Set strip block, click on the strip drop-down menu, and select Rename variable…
Type “LeftLights” as the variable name

In the Set block, change the number of pixels from 30 to 2

Right-click on the Set block and select Duplicate from the context menu
Drag the duplicated Set block into the On Start block

In the second Set block, click on the LeftLights drop-down menu, and select New variable…
Type “RightLights” as the new variable name

In the second Set block, click on the A1 drop-down menu, and select A6

Now let’s set up 3 different light animations that will play when we press button A, button B, and buttons A and B together on our Circuit Playground Express.

From the Input Toolbox drawer, drag out 3 On Button Click blocks onto the Workspace
Using the Button A drop-down menu, change two of the blocks to Button B and Button A+B

In the Variables Toolbox drawer, click on the Make a Variable button
Type “Anim” as the new variable name. This will hold our light animation value.

From the Variables Toolbox drawer, drag 3 Set blocks onto the Workspace and drop one each into the On Button Click blocks

From the Light Toolbox drawer, scroll all the way down to the bottom and drag 3 animation value blocks (the block looks like a round rainbow circle) onto the Workspace and drop one each into the Set Anim blocks, replacing 0
For two of the animation value blocks, click on the drop-down menu to select a different animation

Let’s add some logic to be able to play and stop our animations. We’ll use the value of the switch to determine this – when we move the switch to the right our animations will play, but when the switch is moved to the left we’ll stop the animations and turn off the lights.

From the Logic Toolbox drawer, drag an If Then Else block onto the Workspace and drop it into the Forever loop

From the Input Toolbox drawer, scroll all the way down to the bottom and drag a Switch Right block onto the Workspace and drop into the If block, replacing True

From the Light Toolbox drawer, drag a Show Animation block and drop into the top slot of the If Then block
From the Variables Toolbox drawer, drag an Anim variable value block and drop into the Show Animation block, replacing the default rainbow animation

Click on the Light Toolbox drawer, then click on the NeoPixel drawer underneath it
Drag out 2 Strip Show Animation blocks and drop them into the top slot of the If Then block after the previous Show Animation block
In each of the Strip Show Animation blocks, click on the strip variable drop-down menu and select the LeftLights and RightLights variables

From the Variables Toolbox drawer, drag 2 Anim variable value blocks and drop one each into the LeftLights and RightLights Show Animation blocks, replacing the default rainbow animation

From the Light Toolbox drawer, scroll to the bottom and drag a Clear block onto the Workspace. Drop into the Else slot
Click on the Light Toolbox drawer, then click on the NeoPixel drawer underneath it
Drag out 2 Strip Clear blocks onto the Workspace and drop into the Else slot underneath the previous Clear block
In each of the Strip Clear blocks, click on the strip variable drop-down menu and select the LeftLights and RightLights variables

Your final program should look something like this.

[ Solution program - https://makecode.com/_aiH5gihqxUfo ]

Test your program in the Simulator by pressing the A button, the B button and the A+B button to see the different animations play, and then moving the Switch to the left to turn off all the lights. Once you’re happy with your program, download it onto your necklace!

That's it! You're done!

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