I have a confession. I didn’t want to like this board. It was just a little too… overt. Do I dress mostly in black? Guilty as charged. Is “Floodland” the best album of the 1980s? If you’re asking me, yes. Making a project with a board decorated as a skull, whose default app was a roving cyclopean eye? That was just a bit over the top.

Unfortunately for my desire to keep my goth predilections tasteful, this is a fantastic board. It’s modestly priced, too, considering everything packed into it. Multiple sensors, speaker output, your choice of connecting to I/O three different ways. And then a built-in screen. I loved the Circuit Playground, and this has even more toys crammed in with a similar size and price.

What are you going to do with this board? Where to even begin. Pick two of its features and you’ve got an idea for a project. Screen plus tilt sense from the accelerometer to steer a game, and use the touch sensitive “teeth” as the buttons. Or use the built in NeoPixel plug and the accelerometer as a tap sensor in your next cosplay to make a light-up prop that responds to its own motion. Make the screen respond to the light sensor for a night-light video display. And so on and on and on. The number of projects you could do with this board before even wiring any extra parts on is what really caught my eye.

Just, 3D print a custom enclosure to hide the skull silkscreen if you want to keep your love of “Assemblage 23” hidden around the office. In tasteful black PLA, of course.