Circuit Playground Express Moon Bag

This project uses the Circuit Playground Express kit to create a bag that shows the phases of the moon! Feel free to follow along, but allow yourself to make mistakes, change things up, and have fun!

Circuit Playground Express (Main CPX, 3 AAA Batteries, USB cable, Battery Pack/Switch)

Laptop/Computer Fabric (30x30 recommended. Pillow case would be a good size to start with.)

Scissors

Sewing thread

Needle

It's really important to start with making sure your circuit playground is looking the way you want it to look. The last thing you want is to sew the whole thing up and realize that you made a mistake here.

So here's a link that will give you some extra help if you need it. Go to this if you need a little extra help at any step:

But let's start.

Go to this link: https://learn.adafruit.com/makecode

This is going to be how you will code your circuit playground. It's a block program, but you can also do Java if you want.

Drag the blocks into this formation to make the phases of the moon. The basic sequence is press button a or b, and then the colors followed by the seconds, and then finally a clear. All of this is in a forever loop. The shake feature is with the sparkle animation block and a clear. Feel free to just copy the picture above into your code.

Now we have to load your code into the circuit playground. This is easy. Use the USB cord and plug the circuit right into your computer. Press the reset button in the center. Download your code and copy and paste it into your circuit which you can find in "This PC." If you have any trouble with this, the tutorial linked in the last step shows how to do it step-by-step.

Then slide the cover off the battery holder and throw in some batteries. Connect it to the circuit playground and it should be good to go!

Should look something like this:

So if you have a bag that you want to use, skip the next couple of steps. Just make sure you have a pocket on the bag you are going to use.

If you're sewing, grab your fabric!

Start by cutting your fabric. Make sure you have a handle, pocket, and the main bag. Then thread your needle. Wetting the thread slightly will make it easier to put through the hole. For this step, you can go two ways. If you're going to use a sewing machine, you can do a rough chain stitch. If you want to hand sew, you will need to do tighter stitches.

I did rough and long chain stitches because I have a sewing machine.

Bend the edges of the fabric and sew those in so you hide the rough cuts.

Now you can put them all together with the sewing machine or hand stitch them all together. It's good to sew a cross on the handle so it stays solid.

When you're done with this, you can cut the long stitches from the step before.

So this is the last step. If you already had a bag, you should be here. Now we have to sew it into a pocket. The circuit has holes that go around so we'll be using those. Start in the first hole and put it back through the hole on the inner side (leave a hefty tail here), then string it through the middle hole and then the bottom. Repeat onto the other side and tie up the the remaining thread with the tail.

Now we're going to cut a hole in the main so that the cord from the battery pack can reach the circuit in the pocket. Do this and it should be working! Try shaking it, pressing the buttons, and admire your work!