9V batteries sound and look like they should last long, but putting 6 1.5V batteries in series should last much longer. 9V batteries have a typical capacity of ~550 mAh, 1.5V batteries (even rechargeable ones) have a typical capacity of 2000~3000 mAh.
And I don't know much, so thank you.
Advantages: fairly cheap, rechargeable, and you can give PowerBanks to kids or whatever when finished or if you upgrade to something better. Maybe get kids to help!
> sorry if that's totally kiddie to you
Things are only kiddie if you think they are (personally I enjoy learning from children).
Worrying too much about what others think will hold you back from having fun! Enjoy the game programming!
That's one of the things I miss about "the old Internet". I remember when I first started using it around ~2000 to communicate with other electronics hobbyists, back when avrfreaks was big or just random people's widget shops has forums. There seemingly wasn't the level of toxicity that exists today. The first time I think I ever ran into someone being toxic (directly to me) was about 2009. IIRC they were saying that because I wasn't an EE I shouldn't be attempting to help people or something (I was halfway though high school at that point).
I’m not sure how to nurture my own inner child of discovery and protect it from the unconstructive bullies in the world, or my own negative inner voices. We all have to learn our own techniques, since they have to be personalised to our own personalities.
Anyway, good fortune on your own path of discovery, and thank you for publishing your journey. I do find it inspiring!
Not kiddie at all, AVR microcontrollers have been used commercially for ages and they have some properties that can be nice, e.g. they are fairly simple cores, they operate at 5V and their output pins can sink ~40mA, so you can easily e.g. drive a MOSFET gate.
The Arduino ecosystem is huge and it's great to get things up and running quickly.
One day, I'll do something about everything!