Gemma M0 PyCon 2018
by Adafruit
The Adafruit Gemma M0 is a super small microcontroller board, with just enough built-in to create many simple projects. It may look small and cute: round, about the size of a quarter, with friendly alligator-clip sew pads. But do not be fooled! The Gemma M0 is incredibly powerful! Adafruit used the same form factor from the original ATtiny85-based Gemma and gave it an upgrade. The Gemma M0 has swapped out the lightweight ATtiny85 for a ATSAMD21E18 powerhouse.
The Gemma M0 will super-charge your wearables! It’s just as small, and it’s easier to use, so you can do more.
The most exciting part of the Gemma M0 is that it ships with CircuitPython on board. When you plug it in, it will show up as a very small disk drive with code.py on it. Edit code.py with your favorite text editor to build your project using Python, the most popular programming language. No installs, IDE or compiler needed, so you can use it on any computer, even ChromeBooks or computers you can’t install software on. When you’re done, unplug the Gemma M0 and your code will go with you.
Gemma M0 features:
- Same size, form-factor, and pinout as classic Gemma
- Updating ATtiny85 8-bit AVR for ATSAMD21E18 32-bit Cortex M0+
- 256KB Flash - 8x as much as 8 KB on ATtiny85
- 32 KB RAM - 64x as much as 512 bytes on ATtiny85
- 48 MHz 32 bit processor - 6x as fast as ATtiny85 (not even taking into account 32-bit speedups)
- Native USB supported by every OS - can be used in CircuitPython as USB serial console, Keyboard/Mouse HID, even a little disk drive for storing Python scripts. (ATtiny85 does not have native USB)
- Built in RGB DotStar LED
- Three big-hole sew-pads can be used for conductive thread or alligator-clips for fast prototyping
- Each I/O pad can be used for 12-bit analog input, or digital input/output with internally connected pullups or pulldowns
- True analog output on one I/O pad - can be used to play 10-bit quality audio clips
- Two high speed PWM outputs on other two I/O Pads - for servos, LEDs, etc
- All three pads can also be used as hardware capacitive touch sensors with no additional components required
- Can drive NeoPixels or DotStars on any pins, with enough memory to drive 8000+ pixels. DMA-NeoPixel support on one pin so you can drive pixels without having to spend any processor time on it.
- Native hardware I2C or Serial available on two pads so you can connect to any I2C or Serial device with true hardware support (no annoying bit-banging)
- Same Reset switch for starting your project code over
- On/Off switch built in
- JST battery connector for plugging in AAA’s or LiPoly battery (no built-in LiPoly charging so it is safe to use with NiMH/Alkalines)
Fully assembled and tested Gemma M0 with CircuitPython & example code programmed in.
Tutorials
Downloads
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 Gemma M0 PyCon 2018.
Use this release if you are new to CircuitPython.
Built-in modules available: analogio, array, board, builtins, busio, busio.SPI, busio.UART, collections, digitalio, math, microcontroller, neopixel_write, nvm, os, pwmio, rainbowio, random, rotaryio, rtc, storage, struct, supervisor, sys, time, touchio, usb_cdc, usb_hid, usb_midi
Features: Solder-Free Alligator Clip
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.