What's the size of a credit card and can run CircuitPython, MakeCode Arcade or Arduino? That's right, its the Adafruit PyBadge and little sister Adafruit PyBadge LC! We wanted to see how much we could cram into a ​3 3/8 × ​2 1/8 inch rounded rectangle, to make an all-in-one dev board with a lot of possibilities, and this is what we came up with.

The PyBadge is a compact board, like we said, it's credit card sized. It's powered by our favorite chip, the ATSAMD51, with 512KB of flash and 192KB of RAM. We add 2 MB of QSPI flash for file storage, handy for images, fonts, sounds, or game assets.

On the front you get a 1.8" 160x128 color TFT display with dimmable backlight - we have fast DMA support for drawing so updates are incredibly fast. There's also 8 silicone-top buttons, they are clicky but have a soft button top so they're nice and grippy. The buttons are arranged to mimic a gaming handheld, with a d-pad, 2 menu-select buttons and 2 fire-action buttons. There's also 1 or 5 NeoPixel LEDs to dazzle or track activity.

On the back of the PyBadge we have a full Feather-compatible header socket set, so you can plug in any FeatherWing to expand the capabilities of the PyBadge. There's also 3 STEMMA connectors - two 3-pin with ADC/PWM capability and one 4-pin that connects to I2C - you can use this for Grove sensors as well. The PyBadge LC does not include the feather header or STEMMA connectors, to make it lower cost

For built in sensors, there's a light sensor that points out the front, and the PyBadge has a 3-axis accelerometer that can detect taps and free-fall. To make bleeps and bloops, there's a built in buzzer-speaker. For projects where you need more volume, you can plug in one of our 8 ohm speakers on the PyBadge. (The LC does not come with accelerometer or speaker plug, but it does have a buzzer and light sensor)

You can power the PyBadge from any of our LiPoly batteries, but we like this 400mAh one. An on-off switch will save battery power when not in use. Or power from the Micro USB port - it will also charge up the battery if one is attached.

Now, how to program it? Well you've got a lot of options!

• MakeCode Arcade is the easiest to start for making games, you can drag-and-drop blocks and load games over the disk-drive bootloader
• CircuitPython lets you draw graphics, play wave files and print out text in any fonts - all in Python! There's tons of sensor support as well.
• Arduino is low level, powerful, but a little more challenging. You can use Adafruit Arcada to interface with the hardware and it will abstract some of the nitty-gritty details like reading buttons for you.

Here's a list of everything you get:

Both PyBadge & PyBadge LC:

• ATSAMD51J19 @ 120MHz with 3.3V logic/power - 512KB of FLASH + 192KB of RAM
• 2 MB of SPI Flash for storing images, sounds, animations, whatever!
• 1.8" 160x128 Color TFT Display connected to its own SPI port
• 8 x Game/Control Buttons with nice silicone button tops (these feel great)
• Light sensor, reverse-mount so that it points out the front
• Built in buzzer mini-speaker
• LiPoly battery port with built in recharging capability
• USB port for battery charging, programming and debugging
• Reset button
• On-Off switch

The PyBadge (not LC) also comes with:

• Mono Class-D speaker driver for 4-8 ohm speakers, up to 2 Watts
• Triple-axis accelerometer (motion sensor)
• 5 x NeoPixels for badge dazzle, or game score-keeping
• Two female header strips with Feather-compatible pinout so you can plug any FeatherWings in
• STEMMA JST ports for NeoPixels, sensor input, and I2C (you can fit I2C Grove connectors in here)