Mike Barela - Getting Started with Adafruit Trinket 15 Projects with the Low-Cost AVR ATtiny85 Board

by Mike Barela

Copyright 2015 Mike Barela. All rights reserved.

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[LSI]

I like to talk about electronics and microcontrollers in terms of BA and AA (thats Before Arduino and After Arduino, by the way). In the days before Arduino, there were microcontrollers, to be sure. But it was really, really annoying to work with them. UV lamps, EEPROMs, one-time writes, high-voltage programmers! If you wanted to dabble in microcontrollers, the equipment and knowledge requirements were a steep hill to climb. Thanks to the beginner-friendly (but surprisingly powerful) Arduino, millions of engineers, artists, fashion designers, and more have been able to add electronics making to their skillsets.

At Adafruit, weve been doing Arduino projects for a very long time, and weve noticed that while some people like to push the capabilities to the very edge, there are many people who want something simple and small. A one-key keyboard, or an LED light-up brooch, or a servo driver. In many cases, the Arduino is great for prototyping but is a bit chunky. A smaller, simpler mini Arduino can do the job just fine. Thats why we designed the Trinket, a miniature microcontroller board that can do little tasks nicely, and can be programmed similarly to the Arduino.

The Trinket builds on the great work of the Arduino team, including David Mellis, who first added Atmel ATtiny85 chip support to the Arduino development environment. Even though it may seem underpowered, theres something about the tiny size and simplicity of the Trinket (and its wearable sister, the Gemma) that inspires so many projects.

Im delighted to introduce Mike Barela as the author of Getting Started with Adafruit Trinket. Mike has the deep engineering knowledge to explain the innards of a microcontroller or RC filter, the craftiness to detail how to build LED goggles, and the patience to line-by-line document the dozen projects in this book. As you read Getting Started with Adafruit Trinket, youll find yourself immersed in the joy of hacking and figuring things out, learning how to tweak just a little bit more out of the little Trinket, while gaining knowledge of the same kinds of topics youd run into with hulking 32-bit ARM processors.

Please try to build these projects, and better yet improve on them! Show them off to your siblings, parents, children, or friends. Give them as gifts, wear them to parties, and show off how much fun it is to Make!

Limor Ladyada Fried, Founder and Engineer, Adafruit