What is a Raspberry Pi Pico?

What is Raspberry Pi?

Raspberry Pi is a series of small single-board computers. The Raspberry Pi project originally leaned towards the promotion of teaching basic computer science in schools and developing countries. It is widely used in many areas because of its low cost, modularity, and open design.

Pico?

The Raspberry Pi FoundationPico providesis a microcontroller board developed by the Raspberry Pi OS,Foundation. It was announced in January 2021 and represents a Debian-baseddeparture Linuxfrom distributionthe fortraditional download.single-board Itcomputers promotes(SBCs) Pythonthat andthe ScratchRaspberry Pi Foundation is known for, such as the mainRaspberry Pi 3 or 4. Instead of being a full-fledged computer, the Raspberry Pi Pico is a microcontroller board designed for embedded projects and electronics prototyping. It is closer to an Arduino than a Raspberry Pi.

The Pico includes 26 programmable general-purpose input/output (GPIO) pins, which can be used for various digital and analogue tasks. The Pico can be programmed using MicroPython, a lightweight version of the Python programming languages,language with supportdesigned for manymicrocontrollers. It also supports C and other programming languages. To know more about Pico.

At the moment, The Raspberry Pi Pico family currently consists of four boards; Raspberry Pi Pico, Pico H , Pico W, and Pico WH. Raspberry Pi Pico W and Pico WH have on-board single-band 2.4GHz wireless interfaces.

Things

Set up your Pico

1. Solder header pins onto the Pico, you needcan tochoose knowthe abouttypes that you prefer.
2. Choose a programming language for your PiPico,

   in this tutorial, we will be using MicroPython.

3. Download the correct MicroPython .uf2 file for your board. Raspberry Pi comesPico or Raspberry Pi Pico W
4. Push and hold the BOOTSEL button.
5. Plug your Pico into your computer with a lotUSB ofcable.
different
6. It modelswill andshow eachup ofas theman hasexternal itsdrive owncalled specs.RPI-RP2.
To get started, you first need to know
7. Copy the modelMicroPython of.uf2 yourfile Pi and look atonto the specs.
   RPI-RP2.

Things

Pico youwill needreboot, to set up your Pi

Raspberry Pi is a single-board computer. You can image it as the core of your computer but has no monitor, keyboard or mouse. It can run automated functions without all those things, but you still need them whenthen you are settingready up.to Allgo! necessary

parts

Download areThonny

included

Thonny is an integrated development environment (IDE) for Python programming. It is designed with beginners in themind CTHand Raspberryprovides Pi'sa kit.

simple

1.and Screen

clean

Youinterface canfor usewriting anyand screen,running Python code. Thonny includes features such as longan asinteractive itPython hasshell, a HDMIbuilt-in portpackage manager, and youthe haveability ato powereasily supplyinstall forand manage Python packages. Download here.

Get Started

This example code will blink the screen.

built-in

2.LED HDMIevery cable

0.5

Differentseconds, modelsusing havethe differentmachine typeslibrary ofand HDMIthe ports,time you will need to find HDMI cable that matches your Pi.module.

1. PiPut 3:in standardyour HDMI port x1
2. Pi 4 & Pi 5: micro HDMI port x2code

3.

from Mousetime andimport withsleep
cable

from

Youmachine canimport alsoPin useled the= BluetoothPin("LED", withPin.OUT) a#create dongleLED typeobject offrom mousepin13,Set &Pin13 keyboard.

to

4.output Powerwhile Supply

True:

Differentled.value(1) models#Set haveled differentturn needson time.sleep(0.5) #stay on for Power0.5 supply.seconds Itled.value(0) is#Set notled necessaryturn tooff buytime.sleep(0.5) the#stay official power supply. However, you will need to find one that matches the needs of your pi, please refer to the official document.

1. Raspberry Pi Zero 2 / Pi 3: 5V, 2.5A; Micro USB
2. Raspberry Pi 4: 5V, 3A; USB-C
3. Raspberry Pi 5: 5.1V, 5A; USB-C

5. SD card

The SD card acts as the hard drive of your Raspberry Pi. The higher storage means your pi can save more things on it. BUT, you have to be aware of the types and sizes of the SD card. There is a listoff for you0.5 toseconds check the specific SD card's compatibility with Pi.

In general, I will suggest using one with at least 16GB.

6. Good to have

2. Ethernet Cable - In case you cannot log in toChoose the WIFI,board especiallyand forport non-openat networks.the right bottom corner.

3. FansYou -can Overheatinghit isthe agreen commonplay problembutton fornow, Pi,it especiallywill whenbe running for hours.blinking!

4. CamerasAfter -testing Withthe cameras,code and you canare dohappy about it, save the code as main.py on Raspberry Pi Pico.

5. Pico will run any code named main.py automatically whenever it is powered. But remember to save a lotfile with an identifiable file name on your computer, otherwise you will end up with a bunch of interestingmain.py projectswithout knowing what they do.

6. At this point, you don't need your computer anymore. You can power the Pico with computera visionphone andcharger images.or battery.