The North Shore Glass School in Salem is hosting glass classes all autumn. Learn how to blow, flame, or fuse some fall and Halloween themed glass art.
tldr; arduino teases its “from blink to think” ai launch amid $54m funding, raising questions about open-source certification, attribution, and the future of maker hardware.
In today’s mail, Arduino is teasing its “From Blink to Think” global event, branding it as the biggest reveal yet. A new product is set to launch that promises to “redefine tech” and empower builders everywhere, and it’s what will make the $54 million invested in Arduino all come together. So, yeah, it will be some AI thing.
Blink (the classic “hello world” LED tutorial) –> Think (AI).
Arduino has $54 million in funding, which is. Do investors care about breadboards and blinky LEDs? Or do they care more about recurring subscription revenue and having what is being called “AI” all over the place, from IDEs to the hardware.
Arduino will be acquired, or that’s a likely fate with funding, the investor need a return, this is a good time for vc-funded-Arduino to collaborate with open-source Arduino contributors. Some issues have shown no movement or progress on the IP/code/attribution front, and much of open source is about demonstrating intent. There are zero Open Source Hardware certifications from Arduino (there is from SparkFun, which licensed Arduino). It worth noting that it looks like the open-source SparkFun Arduino pro mini has had more sales than the Arduino version which is not open-source certified. I know some people do not think it matters if it’s open-source, but game is game ya’ll – it’s pretty cool to see the for-sure open-source doing well.
Arduino could also announce at this event that they are open-sourcing the Uno with an Open Source Hardware certification. Does it matter? No. It’s only if Arduino wants to send the signal. I asked 2 years ago, message received.
“We considered your suggestion of submitting our products for OSHWA certification, but we believe this would not provide any benefit to us or to end users as our strong commitment in open source hardware and software is already well known.”
October is Open-source hardware month, c’mon you.can.do.eeeet
And before Arduino goes full on AI… It would be great for Arduino to look at another A I first, Adafruit Industries! Please look at the library manager closely, we’ve had a long history with Arduino, including making Arduino’s in the USA (back when their company was taken over and there were two Arduinos)… and Limor has been a top contributor from the start, she is also about to have kid #2, so we’ll be busy with that soon and I want to be able to show our kids it’s always possible to try to fix things, and if not – document what happened, publish, and keep moving. Look like we’re gonna keep movin’
The “iArduino” contributions that appeared in the Arduino open-source report, from Arduino, indicate that something called iArduino, which isn’t Arduino itself, has made its code part of the ecosystem. We reported this, along with examples from Limor’s code where it appears the attribution was removed and the code was translated into Russian, among other instances. Arduino agreed something was “weird” and changed the name on the presentation and then instructed us to issue DMCA (take-down) requests, no thank you. That raises questions about ownership, attribution, and compliance. Arduino stated that they could not prevent the iArduino from using their trademark, but perhaps there is some information I am not aware of.
Since this might be an issue going forward, we used an edited Edge Impulse PR (acquired by Qualcomm). The PR does the same thing; it adds trademark rules in rules-trademarks.yml. Arduino’s complex history with trademarks and intellectual property is a thing. “AI” is its current state is still in court, a bunch of other people’s copyrighted stuff, this could add additional complexity depending on where Arduino goes.
Arduino surely has an open-source person in charge of open-source, no. The role of “Head of Maker Business, Open Source & Community” appears to be no longer in existence at Arduino. The Arduino CEO informed us and referred us to the “Chief Product Officer.”
That’s a bummer; it appears the more funding, the less open-source, and the less open-source-focused staff. The move to Arduino Pro, removal of the open-source commitments on the about pages, to “From Blink to Think” – likely a new AI board, all this costs tons of money too. See – “What will we do with an additional $22M?” – Arduino blog.
Arduino will likely pitch their new thing as the future. But the future isn’t what anyone expects, or can predict (maybe, sometimes you get to make it).
One thing is for sure, Arduino is a community, and Arduino like it or not is stuck with us, so please Arduino – you can pivot or whatever to AI and cloud IDEs with AI and hardware with AI, just spend the time to make it clear what’s open, what’s not, the $54m in funding happened _because_ of open source, not because of some future AI offering or “Industrial IoT” of whatever flavor of the day was.
WIRED shares how NASA astronomers have identified more than 6,000 exoplanets with the possibility of thousands more.
THE NUMBER OF confirmed planets outside of our solar system—known as exoplanets—has risen to 6,000, NASA has said. There is huge variety across these distant worlds, the space agency says, with discoveries including rocky planets, lava worlds, and gas giants enveloping their stars.
Plenty more discoveries are likely on the way. As a result of continued monitoring by NASA’s Exoplanet Science Institute (NExScI), there are more than 8,000 potential planets that have been identified and are awaiting confirmation. With future missions it has planned, including the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope and the Habitable Worlds Observatory, the US space agency hopes to discover more Earth-like planets and worlds with possible signs of life.
This past Wednesday, NASA launched its Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe to map the heliosphere and monitor how it interacts with material from interstellar space.
Like the film Memento, this LLM is trapped inside its own “mind” [Raspberry Pi]; sent on an existential spiral until it inevitably crashes and starts over. Latent Reflection (2025) is the creation of tech artist Root Kid and is comprised 96 16-segment display running Llama 3.2-3B on a Raspberry Pi 4B.
Latent Reflection is an electronic installation featuring a 6-by-16 matrix of interconnected 16-segment LED modules. Mounted visibly upon an aluminum panel, a Raspberry Pi 4B single-board computer continuously runs a quantized Llama 3.2-3B large language model, prompting the model to introspectively reflect upon its finite existence. Generated thoughts appear word-by-word on the segmented LED display, perpetually unfolding until system memory exhaustion triggers a reset. The visible electronics and transient textual output evoke themes of exposed consciousness, technological limits, and cyclic impermanence. The artwork explores the concept of artificial self-awareness by publicly visualizing an AI’s unguarded reflections on its own constrained and ephemeral state.
In the testing phase Root Kid created a graphic display of his moving eye. The results alone were pretty cool with a cyber punk vibe.
Each Friday is PiDay here at Adafruit! Be sure to check out our posts, tutorials and new Raspberry Pi related products. Adafruit has the largest and best selection of Raspberry Pi accessories and all the code & tutorials to get you up and running in no time!
It’s JOHN PARK’S WORKSHOP — LIVE! — Coming up at 4pm ET / 1pm PT Today! LIVE TEXT CHAT IS HERE in the Adafruit Discord chat!
Today’s Project: ESP-NOW Juggling Lights & Triggers
The live video will be on Youtube LIVE, Twitch, Periscope (Twitter) and Facebook.
Join maker John Park in his workshop each week as he builds, demos, hacks, and mods projects live on air! “John Park’s Workshop — LIVE” is the place to see creative projects come to life, as John uses a wide variety of tools and techniques to make everything from video game controllers to synthesizers to LED dance shoes to coffee robots, using digital fabrication, hand and power tools, microcontrollers, and more. Come on into the chat to participate in the fun! Every Thursday @ 4pm ET/1pm PT!
Getting a bootloader and CircuitPython onto an Espressif board can be a complicated process, involving multiple downloads and software tools. But there’s an easier way. The Espressif boards on the board download pages on circuitpython.org provide a button labelled OPEN INSTALLER. Clicking this button invokes the Web Firmware Installer. This easy-to-use step-by-step tool can:
- Erase the flash on a board
- Install the TinyUF2 bootloader (if the board supports it)
- Install CircuitPython
- Fill in settings.toml with your desired network settings
This Learn Guide describes how to the use the tool. Read more at Using the OPEN INSTALLER button on circuitpython.org
via WIRED
Safes are everywhere in America, securing everything from cash and guns to narcotics and sensitive personal documents—in both homes and workplaces. But with no drills or cutting tools, security researchers James Rowley and Mark Omo have developed two separate techniques for cracking the Securam ProLogic L02, a digital lock used on 8 popular brands of high security electronic safes sold in the U.S. The kicker? The company that makes the lock has no plans to update its code, leaving safes across the country vulnerable.
Before you know it, we’ll be turning our clocks back or forward. Who knows anymore? I’m losing sleep. But, this clock will get you up in time no matter how dark it is when you wake up!
You can build a digital clock with a large 7-segment display, a Feather RP2040, and CircuitPython — no internet required! For time keeping, this build uses the DS3231 Real Time Clock module for precise and accurate timing.
Tracking solar activity began in the early 1600s. Since then, the Sun has had lows and highs in its activity, sometimes with unpredictability. NASA is keeping its eyes in the sky and the Sun’s activity has been ramping up.
The Sun has become increasingly active since 2008, a new NASA study shows. Solar activity is known to fluctuate in cycles of 11 years, but there are longer-term variations that can last decades. Case in point: Since the 1980s, the amount of solar activity had been steadily decreasing all the way up to 2008, when solar activity was the weakest on record. At that point, scientists expected the Sun to be entering a period of historically low activity.
If you are creator or have uploaded anything to YouTube, there is a good chance your content is being used to train AI. This tool from the Atlantic lets you search video data sets and see when and where your YouTube videos were used. Adafruit videos popped up 248 times
Explore the data sets
See whose work tech companies are using to train their generative-AI models. Search for authors, YouTube channels and creators, or screenwriters—for example, , , or . AI companies may omit certain works when training, so the presence of a work in a data set is not definitive proof that it was used. Companies often use multiple data sets in training, so the absence of a given work is also not proof that it hasn’t been used. Note that some data sets contain multiple copies of certain works. Read our FAQ for additional information.
The tool is part of the Atlantics AI series:
AI Is Coming for YouTube Creators
There is push to make smaller and more efficient models that can run on lower end hardware like smartphones and other small consumer devices.
The Raspberry Pi 4 & 5 have specs comparable to mid-range consumer smartphones and run on ARM, the same processor family that many phones use. This means they get to tag along and make use of many of the models that were built for phones and other consumer devices. The Local LLMs on Raspberry Pi guide will document the setup and usage of a handful of models that have been successfully tested on Raspberry Pi 4 and 5 with 8 GB RAM.
via joyceJetson on instructables
I needed a module for a piezo buzzer that could do more than just beep – it had to multitask! I wanted to sound a quick alert when my air quality monitor picked up on too much particulate and play the right melody when my people detection system spotted either a friend or a foe.
So I created a reusable module that I can add to any of my current and future projects.
Each Friday is PiDay here at Adafruit! Be sure to check out our posts, tutorials and new Raspberry Pi related products. Adafruit has the largest and best selection of Raspberry Pi accessories and all the code & tutorials to get you up and running in no time!
Dual screens for dual readings. We love an e-ink display and this project packs twice the fun. The displays track weather in multiple locations and read surrounding CO2 levels. It runs off a Raspberry Pi Pico W with a CO2 sensor attached, all enclosed in a custom 3D printed case.
From jojobosolo on Reddit:
I built this little device to track the Co2 in my room (fun to know for various air-quality reasons). I decided it might as well cycle through the local weather forecasts too. Since I had two E-ink displays, I thought it would be cool to have two locations displayed at the same time.
While it’s cycling through these data screens, it’s uploading all those juicy Co2, temperature and humidity measurements to my website via a Python/Flask API, so that anybody can take a look at the data and graphs (https://ift.tt/VUMx7fr).
Each Friday is PiDay here at Adafruit! Be sure to check out our posts, tutorials and new Raspberry Pi related products. Adafruit has the largest and best selection of Raspberry Pi accessories and all the code & tutorials to get you up and running in no time!
If you missed this week’s livestream of John Park’s Product Pick of the Week, not to worry, here’s the video. This week’s pick is the NeoPot Clear Shaft Potentiometer w RGB NeoPixel! Watch the video to find out about the NeoPot Clear Shaft Potentiometer w RGB NeoPixel, how to use it, a live demo, and more.
Want more JP’s Product Pick of the Week?! Tune in every Thursday at 4pm ET and 1pm PT on Youtube LIVE, Twitch, Periscope (Twitter) and Facebook. LIVE TEXT CHAT IS HERE in the Adafruit Discord chat!
Catch previous editions on YouTube and don’t miss our gift guide!
YouTuber Solder Hub shares this quick video explaining how Hall effect sensors work. The little sensors are inexpensive and abundant. Many devices use them for proximity, motion sensing and more! Solder Hub recovered the one used for the experiment from an old CPU Fan.
In this video, I will show you how to build a simple and fascinating DIY project using a 4-pin Hall Effect Sensor. This project is powered by a 3.7V battery and uses two LEDs with a 100Ω resistor to demonstrate how magnets can control electronic circuits without any physical contact.
Looking for more quick hits of electronics education? Checkout Collin’s Lab where we dive into sensors, soldering, solenoids and so much more!
What is the biggest ship in science fiction? The Citadel from Mass Effect? Nah. The second Death Star? Come on, that’s only the size of a small moon. The Halo from Halo? Not even close. The largest ship in science fiction is the Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann. It’s 10 million light-years tall, about 100 times the diameter of the Milky Way. Impossible? Only if you have a problem with a punch that could take a few million years to land. The biggest? Yes. So big in fact that astrophysicist João V. Tomotani wonders if it could be the Great Attractor. Here’ store from the Journal of Geek Studies:
The existence of a robot 10 million light-years tall is very questionable for some practical reasons. The usefulness of a robot of this size is also doubtful. How could a robot of this size engage in combat (or do anything, actually)? Since nothing restricted by the physics of our universe can move faster than light, the act of throwing a single punch would take a few million years. It would take a few million years more for the pilot of this robot to find whether the punch hit the target or not. It would be a long fight. These practical questions will henceforth be disregarded here. The question posed is only one: could the Great Attractor be a consequence of the existence of the TTGL?
The Griffin Museum of Science and Industry exhibited the amazing world of the most famous spy this past spring. 007 Science: Inventing the World of James Bond goes behind the scenes of the movie franchise and lets visitors explore the gadgets and gizmos that make 007 one of the most equipped spies on the big screen.
Go behind the scenes to learn how the Bond production teams harness real-world science to craft 007’s on-screen adventures. See fantastical gadgets created for the Bond films alongside the real-life inventions they prefigured—see a prototype jetpack from “Thunderball” and the modern Gravity Industries Jet Suit.
Shared by DeskForge on Maker World:
Tame your desk chaos with the GridLock Cable Organizer — a cyberpunk-inspired wire management system that looks like it belongs in a neon-soaked city. Featuring angular walls, recessed grooves, and layered tech-like details, this organizer has multiple slots sized to hold charging cables, headset wires, or controller cords.
Print in black with yellow highlights for a bold cyberpunk vibe, or experiment with dual-color filament swaps for extra flair.
Download the files and learn more
Every Thursday is #3dthursday here at Adafruit! The DIY 3D printing community has passion and dedication for making solid objects from digital models. Recently, we have noticed electronics projects integrated with 3D printed enclosures, brackets, and sculptures, so each Thursday we celebrate and highlight these bold pioneers!
Have you considered building a 3D project around an Arduino or other microcontroller? How about printing a bracket to mount your Raspberry Pi to the back of your HD monitor? And don’t forget the countless LED projects that are possible when you are modeling your projects in 3D!
Wanted: folks who like using Python on hardware…
The Python for Microcontrollers Newsletter is the place for the latest news involving Python on hardware (microcontrollers AND single board computers like Raspberry Pi).
This ad-free, spam-free weekly email is filled with CircuitPython, MicroPython, and Python information that you may have missed, all in one place!
You get a summary of all the software, events, projects, and the latest hardware worldwide once a week, no ads! You can cancel anytime.
It arrives about 11 am Monday (US Eastern time) with all the week’s happenings.
And please tell your friends, colleagues, students, etc.
We’ve got so much happening here at Adafruit that it’s not always easy to keep up! Don’t fret, we’ve got you covered. Each week we’ll be posting a handy round-up of what we’ve been up to, ranging from learn guides to blog articles, videos, and more.
Adafruit IO No-Code Indoor/Outdoor AQI Project Incoming
xLights for Sparkle Motion Board
Flexi Bloody Eye #timelapse #3dprinting #adafruit
Catch up with us on our blog, in our learn system, or on YouTube.
There are A LOT of bluetooth speakers out there. They range vastly in price and can be of questionable quality. The surefire way to get quality for price is to build one yourself! That is just what Print Your Speakers did, in under 30 days they design and build the Dieter. You can purchase a kit form their shop but they also have all the details available if you feel like sourcing the parts yourself.
Even if you don’t want to build a speaker the video will teach you a ton about speakers and stereos!
Hey Mr. DJ! Turn up that Raspberry Pi mix to the max with the cute 3W Stereo Amplifier Bonnet for Raspberry Pi. (It’s not big enough to be an official HAT, so we called it a bonnet, you see?) It’s the exact same size as a Raspberry Pi Zero but works with any and all Raspberry Pi computers with a 2×20 connector – A+, B+, Zero, Pi 2, Pi 3, Pi 4, etc. We’ve tested it out with Raspbian (the official operating system) and Retropie.
Whether you’re looking to add to your booklist or just inspiration for Halloween makes, science fiction is always a great place to start. Reactor shares the list of science fiction titles coming this month.
Cahoots Workshop is the first makerspace of its kind in the Southern Hemisphere, unraveling a historical legacy of men-only spaces.
It’s no secret that barriers corresponding with social identity have deterred women, gender diverse people, and BIPOC from the learning opportunities and community found in maker- and hackerspaces. Cahoots Workshop in Wellington (Pōneke), Aotearoa New Zealand opened its doors this weekend with an all-gender-inclusive event – and Cahoots is a makerspace with a purpose.
“The space will exclusively support women and gender diverse folks,” they explain. “Meaning we’re safe to explore, learn from each other, ask basic or unusual questions and empower ourselves.” The workshop aims to be a space where members can learn how to build, hack, fix, create, and find community in the trades that reflects our experiences, “beginning with our queer and trans founder.”
Context is key. Makerspaces in this part of the world began as “Men’s Sheds” in the 1980s, a movement that originated in Australia with the slogan “Shoulder To Shoulder”, derived from “Men don’t talk face to face, they talk shoulder to shoulder.” Now there are over 100 “MENZSHEDS” in New Zealand, makerspaces that ”provide an environment for men for their personal growth and well-being.” Some allow women, though often for limited hours.
As TheScienceKiwi, over on Reddit’s r/newzealand recounts, “The one I go to only allows women for 2hrs a week and you can only use the wood shop because none of the other men want to come open up the other areas… I get the need for a safe space for men but when you have such a fabulous technical resource it’s hugely frustrating as a woman.” When you’re in a group that’s routinely targeted, discounted, sexualized, or excluded, these feel more like spaces to avoid, rather than walk in seeking knowledge – let alone feel like you count as a maker or tradie. And while Aotearoa’s wider makerspace movement has added a few great spaces in recent years, so far there’s only one “WOMENZSHED” in the country, in Auckland (North Island) – and it only hosts wood and cabinetry workshops.
Cahoots offers a range of tools and expertise, including metalwork, electronics, engineering, woodworking, hardware hacking, power tools and tool training, and more. They’re keen to help members learn how to use power tools, talk about inclusivity in the trades, repair advice, help building weird and wild art projects, and offer a wide range of expertise. There are two affordable membership styles: a paid membership of $20 NZD that allows workshop access on one’s own time, or free membership with access on drop-in office hour days. Check out its Induction Agreement for members, which includes excellent sections on safety as well as their gender and culture policies.
Cahoots Workshop situates itself at the start of a new era in the Southern Hemisphere that carves out a space for marginalized groups: those underrepresented in the global DIY, makerspace, and hacker culture movement – not just in New Zealand.
Makerspaces are essential for informal, opt-in STEM (science, technology, engineering, mathematics) educational experiences in community spaces – and they increase access to and engagement with STEM. Particularly for people looking for making and learning experiences outside local academic makerspaces, and those who routinely face discrimination – people who are not already in makerspaces.
Cahoots’ space exclusively supports marginalized, queer, and female members. Per their website, it means: “We’re safe to explore, learn from each other, ask basic or unusual questions and empower ourselves.” Empowerment is what happens when people do powerful things that matter to them. By opening doors to a space, events, and avenues to hands-on empowerment that are culturally focused, Cahoots is ready to serve as an agent for change and learning within Wellington’s diverse communities, and beyond.
Cahoots Workshop website: cahoots.nz
Cahoots on: Discord | Bluesky | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube
Donate to Cahoots (including tools and materials)
Looking to build a cool Halloween prop or maybe you’re a cardiologist and want to get your point across better…either way, this heart is here to help.
Hold this heart in your hand and it automatically detects your touch and begins to glow, pulsing like a beating heart.
A Circuit Playground Express tucked away inside a 3D printed anatomical heart model uses its capacitive touch pad to detect when it’s being held and pulse its onboard neopixels in response.
Check out the learn guide to make your own.
Coming this week is a whole new Adafruit IO Power-Up to allow you to track the air quality around the world. This is a new Power-Up for our IO Plus customers who want a leg up created automations based on the air quality in a given location. It works similarly to the Weather integration:
At the same time I will be publishing a guide to show you how to track indoor air quality with a small SEN66 device, and view the data on a separate LCD display device. I will also tap into the new power-up so you can see your indoor and outdoor air quality. The entirety of this project can be built without writing a single line of code!
Released WipperSnapper version 1.0.0-beta.113 which includes the MQTT topic fix, resolves a boot loop situation on the ESP32-C6, and adds support for the BMP581, BMP580, and BMP585.
I’ve been catching up on documentation for our boards, adding WipperSnapper pages for the ESP32-C6 Feather, and the Reverse TFT ESP32-S3 Feather.
Lastly working on adding Vector based value support to offline-mode (which runs on the V2 WipperSnapper codebase), enabling things like accelerometers
Fall is almost here. With temperatures falling, the basil and heirloom tomatoes that you have been growing in your garden to top your dinner with are moving back inside the house for winter. But will they still grow?
Noe Ruiz and Brent are teaming up to build a no-code indoor grow monitor for ensuring crop yield, even in winter months! This is the first guide to use advanced cultivation methods such calculating values like the plant’s PPFD and VPD to optimize your crop yield even when growing inside. The best part? There is no code involved at all, you will click, drag and drop, your way to building this project.
Glowing Lotus Flower – Electronic Origami for Beginners
Wireless keyboards. What a concept! I’ve got a few of them and they are usually designed to work over either Bluetooth Classic or Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE). Not every computer or microcontroller can connect with them, but a Pico W or Pico 2 W can, and just costs a few dollars…
And that very same Pico can bridge the wireless keyboard messages via USB HID to a host computer or microcontroller. This way, any computer or device with USB keyboard support can now connect to a Bluetooth Wireless keyboard, without needing BT support. Instant wireless bridge!
This guide will show you how to build a versatile, cheap, small keyboard bridge for all the Blueteeth!
Wanted: folks who like using Python on hardware…
The Python for Microcontrollers Newsletter is the place for the latest news involving Python on hardware (microcontrollers AND single board computers like Raspberry Pi).
This ad-free, spam-free weekly email is filled with CircuitPython, MicroPython, and Python information that you may have missed, all in one place!
You get a summary of all the software, events, projects, and the latest hardware worldwide once a week, no ads! You can cancel anytime.
It arrives about 11 am Monday (US Eastern time) with all the week’s happenings.
And please tell your friends, colleagues, students, etc.
We love IKEA, we love LoTR and Jess Less is combing the two over on YouTube
e_grnsmnn shared this awesome design on Thingiverse! Learn more!
