Get Started with MicroPython on Raspberry Pi Pico: The Official Raspberry Pi Pico Guide

Microcontrollers, like the RP2040 at the heart of Raspberry Pi Pico, are computers stripped back to their bare essentials. You don't use monitors or keyboards with them, but program them over USB to take their input from (and send their output to) their input/output (IO) pins.

Using these programmable connections, you can light lights, make noises, send text to screens, and much more. In Get Started with MicroPython on Raspberry Pi Pico, you will learn how to use the beginner-friendly language MicroPython to write programs and connect up hardware to make your Raspberry Pi Pico interact with the world around it. Using these skills, you can create your own electro-mechanical projects, whether for fun or to make your life easier.

This book shows you how to:

• Get started with Raspberry Pi Pico
• Work with various electronic components
• Create your own programmable electronic contraptions
• Work with Programming Input and Output (PIO) for low level, timing-critical projects
• Learn the Raspberry Pi Pico pinouts for hooking up components
• Use the I2C and SPI protocols to connect to components

By the end of the book, you'll know how to create your own programmable electronic contraptions. What you do with them is up to you.

Gareth Halfacree is a freelance technology journalist, writer, and former system administrator in the education sector. With a passion for open-source software and hardware, he was an early adopter of the Raspberry Pi platform and has written several publications on its capabilities and flexibility. He can be found on Mastodon as @ghalfacree@mastodon.social or via his website at freelance.halfacree.co.uk.

Ben Everard is a geek who has stumbled into a career that lets him play with new hardware. As the editor of HackSpace magazine (hsmag.cc), he spends more time than he really should experimenting with the latest (and not-so latest) DIY tech. He lives in Bristol with his wife and two daughters in a house that’s slowly filling up with electronics equipment and 3D printers.