What Is Feather?

We created a short video to briefly explain the Adafruit Feather and showcase cool projects that highlight some of the many awesome features Feather has. It’s a quick look for folks just getting started and hope it shows what’s possible.

Here is our curated list of awesome Feather form factor boards, guides, videos, libraries, software and resources:
https://github.com/adafruit/awesome-feather/

Introducing Adafruit Feather – History, Background and more!
https://learn.adafruit.com/adafruit-feather/overview

Feather is adafruit’s line of microcontroller development boards that feature a wide range of chips and on-board sensors. The main board is the Feather, it has the microcontroller that will run your code. There’s a whole ecosystem of add-on boards, we call them FeatherWings.

You can prototype with a solderless breadboard and use header pins to easily take the feather in and out. FeatherWings can snap right on top of a Feather with the use of these socket style header pins. Multiple boards can be stacked together so you can make a complex circuit.

The feather format is a standard that uses a 12 and 16-pin headers with point one inch spacing. Most boards feature this small size so it’s compact for most portable projects.But these boards don’t have to be the same size to be feather compatible. As Long as they have the same headers they can also take on FeatherWings. With built-in USB charging, you can power your feather off a lipo and recharge it over USB when the battery gets low.

If your project needs a screen, there’s lots of different options like an OLED, full color TFT or even E-ink displays. Most FeatherWing displays feature socket headers with additional pins so you can still break them out in your circuit. For non stacking projects, you can use the doubler or tripler to spread out your feather wings.

Feathers can be programmed in Arduino, and many can also use CircuitPython. Circuit python is an easy to use flavor of python that is great for beginners who are just getting started with electronics.

Customizable Lightsaber Prop – Make your props come to life with motion activated lights and sounds with the PropMaker FeatherWing.

Bluetooth NeoPixel Hat – The Feather Bluefruit has Bluetooth LE support, you can make wireless projects that are controlled using the free bluefruit app for Android and iOS.

Data-logging Sensor Armband – You can also data log sensors and activities like this wearable arm-band monitor.

Motorized Camera Slider – Add motor FeatherWings to drive steppers motors to create CNC projects like a motorized camera slider with an on-board screen.

MIDI Melody Maker – Get creative with the MIDI featherWing and make musical projects like a custom MIDI instrument.

WiFi Air Quality Monitor – Create a WiFi IoT sensor home air quality monitor. You can log and measure the environment around you, and get notifications or alerts.

With so many awesome features, it’s really easy to add feather to your projects and get started with electronics.