BLM Badge
by Adafruit
The Black Lives Matter Education & Workshop Kit is an open-source design the Adafruit team published during the peaceful demonstrations for social justice in the summer of 2020 (https://github.com/adafruit/BLM-Badge-PCB). As a company and culture we came together to make our voices heard, share the pain we all had, the anger, and then work together for equality and justice in our communities (https://www.adafruit.com/blacklivesmatter). We listened to each other, we marched, we donated our time, resources, we distributed PPE at community events, we came together.
The kit is a snapshot in time, a time capsule of what we did together, and what we can build together going forward. The kit can be used for learn-to-code events remotely or in person when gatherings are safe post-COVID. We wanted to make something that would continue to emphasize the moment, is a movement.
The kits will never be for sale from Adafruit, they will be donated to learning-to-code organizations, social justice groups, and events.
This education and workshop kit is build around a Cortex M0+ processor that can run Arduino or CircuitPython.
Features
- USB-C connector - If you have only Micro B cables, this adapter will come in handy.
- ATSAMD21E18 32-bit Cortex M0+ - 48 MHz 32-bit processor with 256KB Flash and 32 KB RAM
- Native USB supported by every OS - can be used in Arduino or CircuitPython as USB serial console, MIDI, Keyboard/Mouse HID, even a little disk drive for storing Python scripts.
- Can be used with Arduino IDE or CircuitPython
- Power with 2 x AAA batteries, rechargeable or alkaline
- Six side-lighting RGB NeoPixel LEDs
- Four Capacitive Touch pads - they can also be used as digital/analog pins
- Light Sensor
- Sound Sensor (microphone)
- Red LED (
GPIO13) - On / Off switch
- Reset switch for starting your project code over or entering bootloader mode
- Lanyard hole
Learn More
Contribute
Have some info to add for this board? Edit the source for this page here.
CircuitPython 9.2.1
This is the latest stable release of CircuitPython that will work with the BLM Badge.
Use this release if you are new to CircuitPython.
Built-in modules available: analogio, array, audiobusio, audiocore, audioio, board, builtins, busio, busio.UART, collections, digitalio, math, microcontroller, neopixel_write, nvm, os, rainbowio, random, storage, struct, supervisor, sys, time, touchio, usb_cdc, usb_hid
Features: STEMMA QT/QWIIC, USB-C
Absolute Newest
Every time we commit new code to CircuitPython we automatically build binaries for each board and language. The binaries are stored on Amazon S3, organized by board, and then by language. These releases are even newer than the development release listed above. Try them if you want the absolute latest and are feeling daring or want to see if a problem has been fixed.
Previous Versions of CircuitPython
All previous releases of CircuitPython are available for download from Amazon S3 through the button below. For very old releases, look in the OLD/ folder for each board. Release notes for each release are available at GitHub button below.
Older releases are useful for testing if you something appears to be broken in a newer release but used to work, or if you have older code that depends on features only available in an older release. Otherwise we recommend using the latest stable release.
Update UF2 Bootloader
Latest version: v3.15.0
The bootloader allows you to load CircuitPython, MakeCode, and Arduino programs. The bootloader is not CircuitPython. You can check the current version of your bootloader by looking in the INFO_UF2.TXT file when the BOOT drive is visible (FEATHERBOOT, CPLAYBOOT, etc.).
It is not necessary to update your bootloader if it is working fine. Read the release notes on GitHub to see what has been changed. In general, we recommend you not update the bootloader unless you know there is a problem with it or a support person has asked you to try updating it.
To update, first save the contents of CIRCUITPY, just in case. Then double-click the reset button to show the BOOT drive. Drag the update-bootloader .uf2 file to the BOOT drive. Wait a few tens of seconds for the bootloader to update; the BOOT drive will reappear. After you update, check INFO_UF2.TXT to verify that the bootloader version has been updated. Then you will need to reload CircuitPython.