The problem
I'd already been playing with RGB LED matrix panels and wanted a reason to use one for something other than a clock or a scrolling ticker. Separately, I've always liked planespotting, and existing flight trackers are either browser tabs or apps - nothing sits on a shelf and just shows you what's overhead in real time.
The approach
Soko runs on CircuitPython on a MatrixPortal S3 (ESP32-S3) driving a 128x64 HUB75 panel over Wi-Fi. It polls ADS-B data for two modes: Flight Mode tracks a single aircraft by callsign, rendering its airline logo, route, aircraft type, ground/in-flight status, departure and arrival times, and a progress bar for distance covered. Radar Mode instead cycles through every aircraft within a configurable radius every ten seconds, showing city pairs and the bearing and range from the device's own location. Wi-Fi credentials, mode, and location are all set through settings.toml, and dependencies are managed with circup so the whole thing can be flashed to a CIRCUITPY drive without a build step.
The result
The result is a complete end-to-end build - hardware and firmware - that sits on a shelf and tracks real aircraft. Flight Mode and Radar Mode both work off live data, and the panel switches between showing me a specific flight I'm curious about and just ambiently displaying whatever's flying nearby.