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There is no breakout-board for the micro:bit that interfaces 3.3v and 5v. NeoPixel-like LED strips for instance need 5v, so a NeoPixel controller micro:bit needs both a power regulator in and a line driver back out. I hacked these onto a bread:bit breakout board, but to be robust and repeatable this really should be built into a PCB like that. (The controller board I made for Tekton is that on steriods, for the Raspberry Pi; it’s thanks to making those that I had the line driver chips lying around/).
— Cardboard Wipeout
that’s part of the write-up from the first cardboard wipeout workshop. and it was just as true for the second, as the bottom row of the dorkbot slides montage attests.
and so, i finally got to it – behold, my cardboard:bit breakout board. or at least at this point, the design of it.
a risk of doing this is that the ‘finished product-ness’ of a custom breakout board works against the rationale of cardboard wipeout, which is to de-mystify how a computer game is made by breaking it up into simple pieces that kids can make. i.e. it’s an unattainable black-box just like a computer game itself.
to counter that, and going with my experience that the process of designing a PCB on a computer can actually ease the challenge of electronics (i’m hopeless when it comes to reasoning about stuff on a breadboard), the design of this PCB emphases readability. the idea is to be able to be pull it into a few teaching slides to show “what does this board do”.
- it says what it does: buttons, neopixel and power.
- there are visibly two halves for the two voltages.
- the routing for each feature is dumb and direct, even if that leads to an un-optimal design from an electronic engineer’s perspective. e.g. it’s clearly one ‘bunch of wires’ from buttons socket to micro:bit, e.g. there are six -ve connections to the micro:bit edge connector when one would do, to match how the +ve pins embed in the power plane.
