Scrolling Name Display

Put your name up in lights. In this project MIEO slides your name across its 7×5 display, letter by letter, in a colour you choose. When the name has gone, a heart pops up for a second, and then your name comes round again. The display is only seven lights wide, so each letter is drawn with a few lights and moved along one column at a time, just like the signs at a station or on a shop window.

• How letters can be drawn with a small grid of lights
• How a forever loop repeats a message without stopping
• Choosing any colour for the lights with a colour picker
• Changing how fast text scrolls: slow, normal or fast

• Mieo board
• Battery
• 3D-printed mountings
• Screws and screwdriver
• A USB cable, or Bluetooth on your computer
• The Robolab app (free)

1. Fit the battery into its 3D-printed mounting on the back of the Mieo board and fix it in place with the screws. If you built Happy Face Display, your MIEO is already ready.
2. Connect the battery to the board as shown in your kit's build guide, then switch MIEO on.
3. Connect MIEO to your computer with a USB cable, or turn on Bluetooth on your computer so Robolab can find it.

1. Open Robolab, click “No device selected” at the top and choose Mieo. Then click the connection button in the top bar and pick your MIEO.
2. Set the switch at the top right to Upload, so your program is sent to MIEO.
3. From the Mieo group, drag out “when mieo starts up”. From Control, add a “forever” loop under it.
4. From Display, put “show robolab with a … at speed normal” inside the loop. Click the word robolab and type your name.
5. Click the colour circle in the same block and pick a bright colour. This page uses pink.
6. Under it, still inside the loop, add “show heart” from Display and “wait 1 seconds” from Control.
7. Click the green Upload button above the code panel. When it finishes, MIEO restarts and runs your program.

Upload mode: Robolab turns your blocks into MicroPython and sends them to MIEO over USB or Bluetooth. MIEO then runs the program by itself, even after you unplug it.

when mieo starts up
forever
  show (MIA) with a (#F3C) at speed [normal v]
  show [heart v]
  wait (1) seconds
end

# generated by Robolab
import mieo

while True:
  mieo.showtext('MIA', '#FF33CC', 'normal')
  mieo.showemotion('heart')
  mieo.sleep(1 * 1000)

When the upload finishes, your name slides in from the right of MIEO's display and out to the left, in the colour you picked. The display goes dark when the last letter has gone, then a heart appears for one second, and your name starts scrolling again. It keeps going until you switch MIEO off, and starts by itself the next time you switch it on.

If it doesn't work

• Only one letter shows and it doesn't move? A single letter stays still instead of scrolling. Type two letters or more.
• Hard to read? Choose speed slow and a bright colour, such as yellow or white.
• Nothing happens after uploading? Check that the switch at the top right says Upload, and that your stack starts with “when mieo starts up”.

1. Easy: try speed fast and speed slow, and pick a new colour each time.
2. Medium: add a second “show … with a … at speed” block so a friend's name scrolls after yours, in a different colour.
3. Hard: swap the heart for a picture of your own, drawn light by light with “show matrix as”.