Cyberpunk Santa Eye

2022-12-13 | By Adafruit Industries

License: See Original Project Displays Wearables Circuit Playground

Guide by John Park

Overview

Create your own "mad-eyed" Cybernetic Santa Claus eye patch! The eye code with ‎robot/terminator style eye animation runs on the Adafruit TFT Gizmo and Circuit Playground ‎Bluefruit or Express.‎

Some simple crafting with EVA foam sheets makes for a stylish, comfortable eye holder.‎

‎"Ho-ho-ho. Get to da reindeer!"‎

Parts

Circuit Playground Bluefruit - Bluetooth Low Energy
Circuit Playground TFT Gizmo - Bolt-on Display + Audio Amplifier
Lithium Ion Polymer Battery with Short Cable - 3.7V 350mAh‎
EVA Foam Pack in Rainbow Colors - 2mm thick - 10 sheets‎
Adafruit Micro Lipo - USB LiIon/LiPoly charger
Adafruit Micro-Lipo Charger for LiPoly Batt with USB Type C Jack

Materials and Tools

In addition to these parts, you'll also need the following:‎

Scissors or craft knife
CA glue (a.k.a., Superglue)
String or paracord
Santa hat/beard

Assemble the Board

The TFT Gizmo will attach to either the CPB or CPX with enough room for the 350mAh battery ‎to sandwich in between.‎

Prep the TFT Gizmo following these instructions by removing the twelve little Kapton tape dots ‎on the end of each standoff.‎

Board Connection

Making sure to orient the Circuit Playground board with the USB jack pointed "north" and with ‎the TFT Gizmo's 12 o'clock marking also pointed "north", place the battery between the boards as ‎shown. You can use a small bit of blue tack or thin double-sided tape to keep the battery from ‎wiggling around.‎

Also make sure the battery is oriented so the JST cable can plug into the Circuit Playground ‎battery connector.‎

Screw the 12 M3 screws into the standoffs to connect the boards both electrically and ‎mechanically.‎

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Charging

To charge the LiPoly battery, you'll need to unplug it from the Circuit Playground and into a ‎LiPo charger.‎

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Next, we'll put the code on the board -- for this project we'll use ‎the CPB_Eye_Terminator.UF2 file or CPX_Eye_Terminator.UF2 file seen on the next page.‎

Ready-Made UF2 Files

Among the appealing features of Adafruit’s ARM boards is the use of the UF2 ‎bootloader, which makes these boards show up as a small USB flash drive on your computer. ‎Just double-tap the reset button and copy a pre-compiled binary file over to this drive…no need ‎to install or compile anything special with the Arduino IDE! We have a few ready-made ‎animated eyes for some of the Adafruit boards that have screens attached…‎

The hazel Human eye is used by default in our animated eyes code, with an anime-sized iris.‎

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The Dragon eye demonstrates use of a slit pupil.‎

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Some animals have such huge irises you rarely see the sclera (the white part of the ‎eye). No_Sclera is an example eye for these situations.‎

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The Newt eye originated from the Eye of Newt pendant guide…but this one’s trivial to install ‎thanks to the UF2 bootloader.‎

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The Terminator eye design originated with the Terminator Eyeball Upgrade guide…but again, ‎so much easier to install now.‎

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Circuit Playground Bluefruit with TFT ‎Gizmo

These are compiled for the Circuit Playground Bluefruit board with TFT Gizmo and will not ‎work on other boards.‎

Currently, the pupil reacts to the light sensor…this is a bug, the pupil should have its own ‎movements because the sensor is on the reverse side from the TFT display. These UF2s will be ‎updated once it’s resolved.‎

CPB_Eye_Human.UF2

‎CPB_Eye_Dragon.UF2‎

CPB_Eye_No_Sclera.UF2

‎CPB_Eye_Newt.UF2‎

CPB_Eye_Terminator.UF2‎

This is a highly specific Cybernetic Santa Claus version that includes both our Terminator eye ‎graphics and the code to drive a strand of 30 NeoPixels plugged into the TFT Gizmo's A2 port. ‎

CPB_Eye_Terminator_Santa_Lights.UF2‎

Circuit Playground Express with TFT ‎Gizmo

Similar to the above, these are compiled specifically for Circuit Playground Express with ‎the TFT Gizmo; they will not work on other boards. The light sensor is not used here, since it’s ‎on the opposite side from the display…instead the pupil dilates on its own. This can all be ‎changed if you compile from the source code.‎

CPX_Eye_Human.UF2

‎CPX_Eye_Dragon.UF2

‎CPX_Eye_No_Sclera.UF2

‎CPX_Eye_Newt.UF2

‎CPX_Eye_Terminator.UF2‎

Other Boards, and Customizing the ‎Look

Ready-made eyes for the Adafruit HalloWing M0 board are available in the HalloWing guide.‎

For the HalloWing M4 and MONSTER M4SK, see the MONSTER M4SK guide. This one ‎works a bit different…the code and graphics are separate pieces.‎

For everything else, including customizing the behavior and look of the eyes, you’ll need to ‎compile from source code, explained in the original “Uncanny Eyes” guide.‎

Make the Cyberpunk Eye Holder

Getting the board up and running with the Terminator eye animation was pretty straightforward -‎‎- the trickier part is usually how to mount the thing comfortably from the front of your face!‎

No worries, EVA foam sheets make this easy and fun to do, with great looking results.‎

Template

First, print out the linked .pdf template file and cut it out carefully with a craft knife or scissors.‎

Be sure to print it at a full scale 1:1 ratio -- don't let your printer driver interface scale it to fit!‎

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santaEyeHolder01.pdf

Foam Cutouts

Now, use the template to transfer the design to the foam sheet with a marker, then cut it out.‎

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Foam Connections

Yes, it's true, we'll need to unscrew the screws we had used during board testing in order to ‎assemble the foam backing. Sorry about that, but it was necessary to make sure everything was ‎working in the hardware/software realm before doing the crafting portion of the project!‎

Re-assemble the boards with the foam backing covering the Circuit Playground side of the board ‎as shown -- the TFT Gizmo is on the other side, face down on the workbench in this photo, with ‎the 12 o'clock label facing "north".‎‎ ‎

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Top Foam Molding

Just like forming fondant on a cake, we now get to mold the top foam over the Gizmo! The EVA ‎foam is fairly pliable and will conform to a shape when pressed and worked into it.‎

Center the cutout circle over the TFT display, then work the sides down over the boards.‎

If you need to get even more forming action you can apply heat from a heat gun or hair drier, but ‎I didn't find this to be necessary in this case.‎

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String Wrap

To better secure the foam top material, as well as to tie/clasp the device to your head later, we'll ‎use about a 6-foot (about 1.8 meter) length of paracord, or string as shown.‎

Wrap the center of the string under and around the boards, then wind them a few times around ‎each other. Pull them tight and then weave them through the holes as shown.‎

A few dabs of CA glue can help keep the cord twists together where they overlap, although this ‎is optional since the tension applied by wearing the headband will keep it together.‎

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Finishing Touches

Use a small amount of CA glue to secure the two foam pieces, being sure to leave a space ‎unglued for USB cable to plug in from the top.‎

You can use some clothespins to clamp the parts while the glue dries.‎

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Optional Clasp

You can simply tie the string around your head when you are ready to wear it, or add some fancy ‎plastic paracord buckles as shown here.‎

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Now, dress it up with your favorite Santa hat and beard!‎

Add Lights

Want to go one step beyond this already fancy project? Let's add a string of lights! The TFT ‎Gizmo has a couple of JST ports that can drive NeoPixel strands, among other things.‎

We just so happen to have a custom .UF2 file you can use that will both run the cyborg eye AND ‎drive a strand of 30 NeoPixels with blinking, holiday colors!‎

This NeoPixel strip is perfect for the job -- it's half a meter long, has 30 NeoPixels and the JST ‎connector plugs right into the TFT Gizmo for power, ground, and data.‎

Adafruit NeoPixel LED Strip with 3-pin JST PH 2mm Connector

For this to work, swap out the .UF2 file you used for this version, as covered in the Ready-Made ‎UF2 Files page of this guide.‎

Plug the NeoPixel Strip into the JST plug on the side of the TFT Gizmo that is labeled A2.‎

The A2 port is on the left side of the TFT Gizmo when looking at the display.‎

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