Clue manual? Moderators: adafruit_support_bill, adafruit

[SynthGal]

So I borrowed the Clue from a friend (who got it in the sensor adabox) and I'm confused as to where the manual is? I've found a few fragmented sources, but no comprehensive guide on how to use the product.

There's this (https://learn.adafruit.com/adafruit-clue/pinouts) which tells me a few lines on how to access some of the components, but not all.

There's this (https://circuitpython.readthedocs.io/pr ... t/api.html) which shows how to print values from a given sensor, but not what any of it means.

There's this (https://learn.adafruit.com/adafruit-clue/circuitpython) which has a few lessons on basic CircuitPython, but for some reason the example code is sometimes board agnostic? There's things like "If you are using Adafruit CLUE, you will need to edit the code to use board.D17 as shown below!" but this guide is under the main Clue overview, why is there caveats for the QT Py? This is a Clue guide.

There's this (https://learn.adafruit.com/welcome-to-c ... cuitpython) but again, it's board agnostic. It doesn't answer most of the things I don't understand.

It was my understanding that the Clue was an educational tool. Where's the, yknow, educational material for this specific product? Am I supposed to bounce from snippet to snippet and figure out everything on my own? I'm very confused.

[dastels]

You're on the right track. Look through: https://learn.adafruit.com/search?q=CLUE

[SynthGal]

That's just a search query. I browsed through all results and cannot find any manual, just a bunch of guides for projects I have no interest in. It even stopped being CLUE related after page two.

Does that mean that yes, I am in fact supposed to jump from example project to example project (many of them community made) to figure it out on my own and that this educational product has no dedicated manual, lessons, or comprehensive documentation?

[dastels]

There is no comprehensive manual. There's the main product tutorial guide which you seem to have found already, and a collection of project guides.

[SynthGal]

Excellent, thank you. Guess I'll be giving this back to my friend.

[kevinjwalters]

There's a book for another board, the Circuit Playground Express (CPX), which can run CircuitPython: Getting Started with Adafruit Circuit Playground Express - by Anne Barela.

There's also some structured material from a course for the Circuit Playground Bluefruit (CPB) using CircuitPython which has been generously shared on YouTube: John Gallaugher: Circuit Playground Bluefruit - Fall 2019.

For the CLUE, can you describe what elements you were looking for?

[SynthGal]

I want a complete, comprehensive manual (consider "comprehensive manual" to mean "at least as comprehensive as the manual that came with the Commodore 64") to be included with the educational product (tailored for said educational product, not some other random board I don't care about) or posted online. If I have a question on how to do something with it, the manual should answer it.

Frankly, every adafruit board that touts itself as educational (given that adafruit also touts it self as a company meant to teach electronics that should mean literally every product sold) should also come with documentation, but I guess the whole "teaching" part of education is too hard and adafruit has decided to dump that responsibility on the unpaid community.

I genuinely don't understand how this glaring lack of educational material just... flew under the radar. Is everyone at adafruit just that high level of an expert on how 2 electronics that they've forgotten that human beings don't actually come with that knowledge embedded in their genes?

[ATSa]

My experience with electronics is that it is more of a journey than a destination.

The Adafruit CLUE is a Arduino (C++)/CircuitPython board that offers challenges for beginning level, intermediate level, and advanced practitioners. Arduino Uno (C++) is a great starting place that offers less frustration when starting out. There are a number of helpful books, YouTube videos, and online courses that will help with gaining foundational level electronics skills

Simon Monk’s Arduino books are great http://simonmonk.org/prog_arduino_1/

Paul McWhorter’s YouTube videos are another great place to learn https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCfYfK0tzHZTpNFrc_NDKfTA

Coursera’s IoT Certification offered by UC Irvine has been very very helpful https://www.coursera.org/specializations/iot

I am very thankful for all of the Adafruit tutorials, but I had to develop foundational skills before I could begin to work with the CLUE.

Fwiw it has taken me about 24 months of working through those references plus weekend projects to get here https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCDuWq2wFqeVII1KC7grySRg?view_as=subscriber TLDR I find the CLUE to both interesting and challenging

[MVB01]

This might be a little late for this discussion, but while the Clue is an educational board it isn't really a beginner board.
The Clue is basically a BBC Micro:Bit on steroids. The Micro:Bit is a better starting place for someone just starting out, since there ARE manuals and educational guides for it. Using the Clue as an intro to microcontrollers is a bit like learning to drive in an F-1 race car rather than a Ford Fiesta. You can do it, but you'll need an instructor.

[dastels]

Nobody drives a Ford Fiesta for fun ;)

[kevinjwalters]

I'd agree on the BBC micro:bit, it's been around for a long time and there's a lot of supporting material and products for it, plus the micro:bit V2 is a substantal upgrade in performance.

There's also the very new Raspberry Pi Pico with the might of the Raspberry Pi foundation behind it which is worth keeping an eye on. This must have been planned for sometime as there's already a (free pdf) MicroPython book for it, Pimoroni have a range of accessories for it and Adafruit Feather and ItsyBity boards are in the pipeline...

[kevinjwalters]

There's another book now: Programming Microcontrollers with Python by Armstrong Subero. Mentioned on https://twitter.com/anne_engineer/statu ... 0695797766 and Adafruit Blog: New book out: Programming Microcontrollers with Python.

[kevinjwalters]

For French speakers there is Initiation au langage CircuitPython et à la puce nRF52840 by Michael Bottin. That looks very CLUE-centric judging by the content on his YouTube channel, plus the cover!

[karelv]

A simple example to draw a line or put text on the screen of the CLUE would already be step in the right direction.
I can't seem to find the original code the CLUE is programmed.
My module after a few trials does not show up as COM anymore, so not programmable...

[SynthGal]

So basically, like almost every development project I get interested in, documentation required to figure it out is fragmented, incomplete and impenetrable. Ok, thanks, that's all I needed to know.