I received a Adafruit Hallowing in the Supercon sponsor gift bag given to attendees. While reading up about it, I came across this line that made no sense to me at the time.

OK so technically it's more like a really tricked-out Feather than a Wing but we simply could not resist the Hallowing pun.

feather-logo

I can tell the words "Feather" and "Wing" has some meaning in this context that is different from their plain English meaning, but I didn't know what they were talking about.

But since this is Adafruit, I knew somewhere on their site is an explanation that breaks down whats going on in detail. I just had to follow the right links to get there. My expectations were fully met - and then some - when I found this link.

So now I understand this is a counterpart to the other electronics hobbyist programming boards and their standardized expansion board form factor. Raspberry Pi foundation defines their HAT, Arduino defines their Shield, and now Adafruit gets into the game with feathers (a board with brains) and wings (accessories to add on a feather.)

Except unlike Raspberry Pi or Arduino, a feather isn't fixed to a particular architecture, or a particular chip. As long as they operate on 3.3 volts and can communicate with the usual protocols (I2C, SPI), they can be made into a feather. Adafruit make feathers out of all the popular microcontrollers. Not just the SAM D21 at the heart of Hallowing, but also other chips of the ATmega line as well as recent darling ESP32.

Similarly, anyone is welcome to create a wing that could be attached to a feather. As long as they follow guidelines on footprint and pin assignment, it can fit right into the wings ecosystem. Something for me to keep in mind if I ever get into another KiCad project in the future - I can build it as a wing!