Projects
Need inspiration? Find it here! These tutorials feature special projects broken down into steps to illustrate how you can use various concepts, skills, and technologies to build awesome stuff.
Twinkling Trick or Treat Bag
October 2, 2014
Make a light up goodie bag with conductive thread, LEDs, and the LilyTwinkle!
LilyPad Safety Scarf
November 21, 2017
This scarf is embedded with a ribbon of LEDs that illuminate when it gets dark out, making yourself more visible to vehicle and other pedestrians.
Environmental Monitoring with the Tessel 2
October 13, 2016
Build an air-conditioner monitoring device to collect environment information and store it in the cloud.
ReconBot with the Tessel 2
October 13, 2016
Build a robot with the Tessel 2 that you can control from a browser on your phone or laptop.
Sunrise Machine with the Tessel 2
October 13, 2016
Are you to sleepy to enjoy a sunrise on a brisk morning? Yeah...us too! No worries, with a Webcam, a Tessel 2 and a bit of code you can sleep in and catch the sunrise at your leisure with the Sunrise Machine.
Logging Data to Google Sheets with the Tessel 2
December 12, 2016
This project covers how to log data to Google Sheets two ways: using IFTTT with a web connection or a USB pen drive and "sneakernet" without.
pcDuino Crowdsource Kiosk
January 9, 2014
Getting People to do your job for you (badly) with some chocolate and a pcDuino!
Raspberry Pi Twitter Monitor
November 19, 2013
How to use a Raspberry Pi to monitor Twitter for hashtags and blink an LED.
Spectacle Example: Super Mario Bros. Diorama
May 4, 2017
A study in building an animated diorama (with sound!) using Spectacle electronics.
Dungeons and Dragons Dice Gauntlet
August 13, 2013
A playful, geeky tutorial for a leather bracer that uses a LilyPad Arduino, LilyPad accelerometer, and seven segment display to roll virtual 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 20, and 100 side dice for gaming.
Das Blinken Top Hat
January 22, 2014
A top hat decked out with LED strips makes for a heck of a wedding gift.
Creating a Humidor Control Box
March 13, 2013
Because some of our boards need to be re-humidified after reflow, we decided to make our own humidor. This tutorial will focus on how to model a project in 3D and then fabricate it using a CNC routing machine.
Using Artnet DMX and the ESP32 to Drive Pixels
March 29, 2018
In this tutorial, we'll find out how to use Resolume Arena, a popular video jockey software, to control custom-made ArtNet DMX fixtures.
Hackers in Residence: The Sound Visualizer Pt. 2
May 7, 2015
An addition to a previous project, this time using a PC and a custom Java app to create your own music visualizer using a RGB LED matrix.
How to Make a Custom EL Wire Extension Cable
October 24, 2018
In this tutorial, we will make a custom EL Wire extension cable as an alternative to splicing wire.
HID Control of a Web Page
March 12, 2014
Learn how to move a slider on a webpage and make a motor spin. We connect HTML and HID to read sensors and interface with the physical world.
Pokémon Go Patches with EL Panels
August 3, 2016
Add a cloth stencil over EL panels to create glowing logos and designs.
Humidity-sensing LED Flower
October 28, 2014
How about that humidity? This tutorial shows how to add sensing capability to the 21st Century Fashion Kit's RGB flower project.
Sound Reactive EL Wire Costume
December 31, 2015
Learn how to make your EL wire costumes sound reactive in this project tutorial.
EL Wire Light-Up Dog Harness
October 30, 2015
Learn how to create a light-up dog harness using EL wire for when you need to take your four-legged friend for a walk in the dark.
Planning a Wearable Electronics Project
August 13, 2015
Tips and tricks for brainstorming and creating a wearables project.
Soil moisture-sensing by hacking a solar light
June 19, 2014
How to take a solar powered pathway light from a hardware store and make it into a crude soil moisture sensor.
Craft a Holiday Greeting with Love to Code
March 23, 2018
Craft your own paper circuit holiday greeting using the LEDs, a Chibi Chip, Love to Code!
21st Century Fashion Kit: Inflation
December 10, 2014
Learn how to use a blower and thin sheet plastic to create designs that change shape and volume!
Old Tutorials
Looking for the old, archived tutorials? Head on over to the
archived tutorials on the main
SparkFun site.
Please be aware that the tutorials you find there are no longer
actively maintained.