The Snake Eyes Bonnet is a Raspberry Pi accessory for driving two 128 x 128 pixel OLED or TFT LCD displays and also provides four analog inputs for sensors. It's perfect for making cosplay masks, props, spooky sculptures for Halloween, animatronics, robots...anything where you want to add a pair of animated eyes!
This product is just the Pi Bonnet itself and some headers so you can plug it into a Pi. While it will work with any Raspberry Pi with a 2x20 Header (Pi B+, Pi 2, Pi 3, Pi 4, Pi 5, or Pi Zero, etc) you'll get best performance from a Pi 3 since we do some heavy-duty OpenGL rendering!
It’s a follow-on of sorts to another project: Electronic Animated Eyes Using Teensy 3.2. The Teensy 3.2 is a very capable microcontroller, and the code for that project squeezed every bit of space and performance from it. We had been experimenting with the Raspberry Pi as an alternative…while it’s still very experimental, why not make that work available to others?
The Raspberry Pi offers some potential benefits:
Hardware-accelerated 3D graphics (OpenGL), including antialiasing.
A faster CPU, ample RAM, and dual SPI buses could yield faster frame rates.
Standard graphics formats like JPEG, PNG and SVG can be decoded on the fly; no preprocessing step.
The eye rendering code is written in a high-level language — Python — making it easier to customize.
If you want a smaller, if less powerful version, check out the original Teensy Eyes! They are more “Arduino-like” to build and customize, or other guides like Animating Multiple LED Backpacks provide a more approachable introduction to code and electronics with less of an investment.
For all the details on how to use this Bonnet, check out the tutorial which has code, diagrams and some creative ideas for usage!
Raspberry Pi, displays, and jumper wire are NOT included!
Revision History
As of March 18, 2024 - This display bonnet now has the 2x20 header pre-soldered. We also updated it with Adafruit Pinguin to make a lovely and legible silkscreen. We also use a slim style socket header, so you may need to get a 2x20 Riser to lift above the board if you have a Pi 3 or 4 with PoE header pins in the way.
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