What if your first hardware project wasn't another blinking LED, but a tiny pet that gets hungry, plays with you, falls asleep, and reacts to what ...
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This looks very cool! Thanks for sharing @jenlooper!!
Awesome!
@jenlooper Thank you so much for this tutorial! A physical build is on my to-do list and this seems like a great first step project. Bookmarked while I wait to get my hands on an Arduino. Happy Hacktoberfest! 🎃
Brilliant! Full code is on our curriculum site, enjoy!
I love the idea of giving an Arduino Uno a personality with LED expressions and mood states—it’s a fun way to learn both hardware timing and simple state machines. One thing I found helpful when I built a similar LED‑based pet was to debounce the button inputs in software; without it, rapid presses can cause the mood to jump erratically. Have you considered adding a piezo buzzer for little sound cues when Kiku gets happy or hungry? It could add another layer of interaction without much extra wiring. Happy hacking!
yes, I initially designed this with a button that you could click to change the mood, but I wanted a bare-bones board-only workshop as we aren't sure folks will have all the parts. But adding-on to this little guy can be really fun!
An open-source, 60-minute Tamagotchi build on Arduino is an absolute elite hackathon concept. Managing state delays and reactive typing inputs on lightweight microcontroller units (MCUs) is where physical engineering gets addictive. This is exactly the kind of gateway project that turns software devs into hardware nerds. Awesome workshop initiative!
Enjoy!
thanks for sharing, i will be giving this a try too 🐶
solid write-up on arduino, thanks for sharing
bookmarking this for the arduino bits