I'm having fun learning Adafruit's CircuitPython, alternating between beginner-friendly tutorials and diving into more advanced topics like USB endpoints. Next step is popping back into tutorial world as I open my Adabox 021.

This was my first Adabox. I started my subscription sometime during the pandemic hoping for a nice distraction but global supply chain issues meant Adafruit had to put the program on hold. Subscribers are not charged until a box ships, so the hold didn't cost me any money, it just meant I didn't get the distraction I wanted. Finally the program resumed with Spring 2024's Adabox 021 and I like what I saw when I opened the box. Everything was wrapped up with a nice presentation, like a gift box.

The core of Adabox 021 is their Memento camera board, which can be purchased on its own but subscribers get several accessories to go with the board. Like face plates front and back to protect fragile electronics on the main camera board. I was amused by the fact fun photography-related quotes have been placed on inner surfaces where they can be read during assembly but hidden out of sight once assembled.

I followed assembly instructions and everything came together smoothly. But the camera couldn't take any pictures. A bit of troubleshooting pointed to the bundled 256MB microSD card as my problem. When I swapped it out with a 4GB microSD card I had on hand, the camera started working. My computer couldn't read the 256MB card either. So I followed "microSD Card Formatting Notes" and used SD association's formatting utility on the 256MB card, which seemed to run as expected. After formatting I could use my PC to write a text file to the card and, once ejected and re-inserted, read the text. But if I then put that card into Memento, it would not be recognized by Memento as a valid storage device. And after that, my PC could no longer read the card, either, and I have to format it again. Something's weird here and I'm not alone but since I had a 4GB card that worked, I'm not going to worry too much about it. It's much more interesting to start examining details of this device.