Hands-On with the Adafruit CircuitPlayground Bluefruit

High school visit (04/20/2026)

Erik Fredericks, frederer@gvsu.edu
Winter 2026

https://efredericks.github.io

Plan for today

1. Block programming in a simulator

2. Program device

3. Try it out on the speakers!

Block programming

In a browser, go to:

https://maker.makecode.com

First steps

1. Click 'New Project'

2. Give it a name!

3. Click create and then select the adafruit-circuit-playground-bluefruit

Make a sound!

Let's make a sound on a button press.

Click Input and get an on button A click field.

• Anything in that block will run when you click a button
• You can put any action in there!

Now, pop a sound in. Click Music and then play sound ba ding until done and drag that inside the button event.

• You can change the sound by clicking the drop down!

Download to the device!

This is all on your computer - let's put it on a device!

1. Click the Download button - a *.uf2 file will download to your computer.

2. Make sure the device is plugged in! If you don't see a CPLAYBTBOOT folder in your file explorer then click the small button in the middle of to reset it.

• If it still doesn't work, try clicking it twice to put it into bootloader mode.

3. Drag the .uf2 file onto your CPLAYBTBOOT directory

• It should auto-load - if not try resetting it!

Now some forever sounds!

Add the play <waveform> node to your forever block

• Play with the waveform by clicking on it and moving the points around!

Now make a variable and turn it on/off!

First add a variable - click Variables and Make a variable and call it soundActive

Then, drag the set soundActive to 0 field to the on start block

• Set its value to be 1

And change the variable

Add another button block and have it respond to Button B.

Inside that block, change the soundActive variable to be the opposite!

Also, add the stop all sounds block so that things stop!

And then, the if statement

In your forever block, add an if statement to play sound! This will involve adding a bunch of things, so good luck!

Create a lightshow on touch

Add another input, this time for a touch sensor

Then, add a lightshow!

Hook up to a speaker!

If you want to test out your program on a better speaker, here's how it can be wired up!

• Connect the GND pad (ground) to the base of the audio connector
• Connect the tip of the audio connector to the AUDIO pad

Have some fun!