The Raspberry PI Foundation has released the Raspberry PICO a powerful and cheap microcontroller. You can develop for this microcontroller using Python or C/C++. Only with C and C++ can you get the full power of the device including access to the dual cores and the programmable IO capability.
Getting going can feel hard and you are all thumbs. The bootsel loading strategy (like a USB key) can feel tedious within the development cycle. There are better ways to set-up your environment to support an efficient Raspberry PICO development environment. So you can stop worrying about the tools and start focusing on your project.
Join us on this course to find out how to set-up a working environment to:
Easily build and deploy code quickly to the Raspberry Pico.
Reuse others libraries as building blocks for your own work.
Debug your work through GUI debugging environment
The course requires students to have:
Raspberry PI PICO MicroController, which will be our target
Raspberry PI 4 running Ubuntu or Raspberry OS, which will be our build and debug probe
Windows or Mac Desktop or Laptop, which will become your coding environment
The skills you will learn and the development environment you will set-up will work for both the PICO and PICO W (WIFI version of the PICO launched in 2022). The examples project code in this course will though only work on the PICO due to limited external electronics and focusing on the onboard LED.
Prerequisite experience:
The course is focused on set-up of environments for Raspberry PICO C/C++ development. Some knowledge of C/C++ is expected though the examples used are all very basic.
Some soldering is required to attach header pins to the Raspberry PICO and familiarity with soldering is desirable.
In the libraries section, some simple external electronics are used (5mm LED and WS2812B LEDS). Beginner knowledge of electronics or willingness to do some external reading is required. These are very straightforward.
