So excited to see stuff moving quickly with Jewelbots! Literally 5 days after I made my pull request to extend the functionality of the Buzzer, it becomes available in the latest firmware! [caption id=”attachment_673” align=”aligncenter” width=”761”] http://alpha.jewelbots.com/t/arduino-library-update-6-different-buzzer-lengths-to-program/290\[/caption\] It’s not my code, but it is my suggestion, so I’m calling it a win! Thanks ScottD! You rock!

Being an early backer of the Kickstarter for the Jewelbots project, I was excited to finally give one to my daughter for Christmas. She’s poked at it a bit and made some cool color patters, but hasn’t fully jumped in. I think once the app and bluetooth connectivity arrive, she’ll get more into it. I am definitely more excited about it than she is, and I’m going to help get her there.

To that end, I’ve jumped into the forums to see if I could provide any feedback or assistance to those having issues. I found a request to provide the ability to use the Buzz function for an arbitrary amount of time. Currently only short_buzz() and long_buzz() are provided. I was able to quickly get something working and made a pull request to add it to the library. Special thanks to @glennblock and @noopkat for providing useful instructions on setting up the environment. It’s a constant work-in-progress, but this early on, it’s fun to hack-it-until-it-works. I am not in love with writing code in the Arduino editor so, I am going to see if I can get the compile/upload to work from something a little more friendly, like VSCode.

I’m all in on Jewelbots and hope to help make it a fun experience that encourages more daughters to get into coding.