HPR4075: Making a Pomodoro Timer

Making a Pomodoro Timer
Slacking Off at work

I get distracted Easy
My mind drifts if I try to focus on a single task For more than
20-30 Minutes.
If I try to fight the urge to just keep working my productivity goes
way down.
I end up working for a bit, then slacking off for half an hour.
I can get more work done If I embrace my limitation and force myself
to take a break.

Pomodoro Technique

From Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pomodoro_Technique

The Pomodoro Technique is a time management method developed by
Francesco Cirillo in the late 1980s. It uses a kitchen timer to break
work into intervals, typically 25 minutes in length, separated by short
breaks. Each interval is known as a Pomodoro, from the Italian word for
tomato, after the tomato-shaped kitchen timer Cirillo used as a
university student.

The Timer

There are plenty of Pomodoro Apps I've tried using an app, but I
would often forget.
I wanted a physical device that was always on by desk and could grab
my attention.
I looked for a dedicated physical Pomodoro timer, but only found the
kitchen timers
I decided to make myself a timer using a Circuit Playground
Express

Circuit Playground Express

In my past episode about using a Pi pico to type passwords I
mentioned I owned a playground express.
The playground express is a micro controller with a lot of built ins

2 buttons
10 multi color LED
...

Runs circuit python with lots of libraries so it is easy to
program.

TDD

About once every other year I decided to start a project with as
much TDD as I can.
TDD Basics

Write a test BEFORE you write the code
Run the test - It will fail
Write the simplest code that will pass the test
Run the test and make sure it passes
Refactor/improve the code if needed.

TDD advantages

Code is easy to separate into discrete functions
Parts of the code can be rewritten without affecting the rest
confidence in rewrites

pomodoro.py

Circuit python looks for and runs a file named
code.py
A lot of the circuit Python code has to be run on the micro
controller
My Developers workstation does not have the LED's or buttons
I split the some code into a separate file based on if it could run
in "regular" python.
I used TDD as much as possible to test the functions in
pomodoro.py

code.py
BREAK_MINUTES = 5
WORK_MINUTES = 25

Functions that require hardware
No tests.
counts down and changes color of led
minutes divided by number of LED

Using the timer

Ready

Green Light next to button to start work Period
Blue Light next to button to start break Period

Working

White Background
Green progress pixels

Break

White Background
Blue progress pixels

Button A

Start working

Button B

Start Break

Links

https://gitlab.com/norrist/circuit_playground_pomodoro
https://circuitpython.org/downloads
https://learn.adafruit.com/adafruit-circuit-playground-express/circuitpython-neopixel