Robotics at Home with Raspberry Pi Pico: Build autonomous robots with the versatile low-cost Raspberry Pi Pico controller and Python

Design, build, and program a mobile robot platform while gaining an understanding of the Raspberry Pi Pico, Free CAD, and robot sensors using Python to code, Bluetooth to connect & smartphone to control your projects

Key Features

• Gain in depth knowledge of robotics with easy-to-follow instructions
• Build a rover platform designed for experimentation and extension
• Enhance your robot building skills through planning, building, and coding
• Purchase of the print or Kindle book includes a free PDF eBook

Book Description

The field of robotics is expanding, and this is the perfect time to learn how to create robots at home for different purposes. This book will help you take your first steps in planning, building, and programming a robot with Raspberry Pi Pico, an impressive controller bursting with I/O capabilities. After a quick tour of Pico, you’ll begin designing a robot chassis in 3D CAD. With easy-to-follow instructions, shopping lists, and plans, you’ll start building the robot. Further, you’ll add simple sensors and outputs to extend the robot, reinforce your design skills, and build your knowledge in programming with CircuitPython. You’ll also learn about interactions with electronics, standard robotics algorithms, and the discipline and process for building robots. Moving forward, you’ll learn how to add more complicated sensors and robotic behaviors, with increasing complexity levels, giving you hands-on experience. You’ll learn about Raspberry Pi Pico’s excellent features, such as PIO, adding capabilities such as avoiding walls, detecting movement, and compass headings. You’ll combine these with Bluetooth BLE for seeing sensor data and remotely controlling your robot with a smartphone. Finally, you’ll program the robot to find its location in an arena.

By the end of this book, you’ll have built a robot at home, and be well equipped to build more with different levels of complexity.

What you will learn

• Interface Raspberry Pi Pico with motors to move parts
• Design in 3D CAD with Free CAD
• Build a simple robot and extend it for more complex projects
• Interface Raspberry Pi Pico with sensors and Bluetooth BLE
• Visualize robot data with Matplotlib
• Gain an understanding of robotics algorithms on Pico for smart behavior

Who this book is for

This book is for beginner robot makers, keen hobbyists, technical enthusiasts, developers and STEM teachers who want to build robots at home. Prior knowledge of coding - beginner to intermediate programming, will be helpful.

Table of Contents

1. Planning a Robot with Raspberry Pi Pico
2. Preparing Raspberry Pi Pico
3. Designing a Robot Chassis in FreeCAD
4. Building a Robot Around Pico
5. Driving Motors with Raspberry Pi Pico
6. Measuring Movement with Encoders on Raspberry Pi Pico
7. Planning and Shopping for More Devices
8. Sensing Distances to Detect Objects with Pico
9. Teleoperating a Raspberry Pi Pico Robot with Bluetooth LE
10. Using the PID Algorithm to Follow Walls
11. Controlling Motion with Encoders on Raspberry Pi Pico
12. Detecting Orientation with an IMU on Raspberry Pi Pico
13. Determining Position using Monte Carlo Localization
14. Continuing Your Journey

Danny Staple builds robots and gadgets as a hobbyist, makes videos about his work with robots, and attends community events such as PiWars and Arduino Day. He has been a professional Python programmer, later moving into DevOps, since 2009, and a software engineer since 2000. He has worked with embedded systems, including embedded Linux systems, throughout the majority of his career. He has been a mentor at a local CoderDojo, where he taught how to code with Python. He has run Lego Robotics clubs with Mindstorms. He has also developed Bounce!, a visual programming language targeted at teaching code using the NodeMCU IoT platform. The robots he has built with his children include TankBot, SkittleBot (now the Pi Wars robot), ArmBot, and SpiderBot.