Here’s what’s in the kit:
• RP2040/Pi Pico board
• 6 LED lights
• vibration motor
• 2 push button switches
• 4 M2 screws
• 4 M2 spacers
• wood base
You’ll need …
- soldering iron & solder
- wire strippers and/or cutters
- small Phillips screwdriver
- micro USB cable w/ data
- computer (any OS)
- masking tape (optional)
Instructions
❏ Find the vibration motor. Strip 1/4″ of plastic insulation from the end of each wire using wire strippers.
❏ Connect vibration motor wires to GP28 and GND pin holes as indicated in the diagram and solder in place. If you want, you can tape the wires down to the board first to keep them from moving around while you solder.
❏ Remove the plastic strip from the underside of the vibration motor and stick it to a flat spot on your Pi Pico board. The wires are delicate, so avoid pulling too hard on them.
❏ Insert the leads from your push button switches into GP0, GND, and GP3, with leads from both switches sharing the GND pin hole. Solder the switches in place.
❏ Solder the LEDs to the board in the positions indicated in the diagram. The long lead (+) from each LED will connect to a pin starting with GP, and the shorter lead will go to to GND.
❏ Use wire cutters to trim excess leads from the underside of your board.
❏ Your Pi Pico has a screw hole on each corner. The top left one is partly covered by a switch, so you’ll use the other three screw holes to attach the board to the wood base. Set spacers over three pilot holes on the wood base, place your Pi Pico on top, insert the screws, and tighten them with a small Phillips head screwdriver.
❏ Install the Thonny IDE on your computer.
Thonny IDE
❏ Download the CircuitPython firmware and install it on your Pi Pico.
CircuitPython firmware
- Press the white BOOTSEL button on your Pi Pico while plugging it into your computer. Once it’s plugged in you can release the button.
- You’ll see a USB drive called RPI-RP2 appear on your computer. Drag the CircuitPython firmware file (filename ending with .uf2) onto the RPI-RP2 drive.
❏ Open Thonny and save this example code to your Pi Pico with the filename code.py:
Example code
❏ Click the green Run button in Thonny to run your code. Press a button and see if it works!
❏ Every time you update your code, you’ll save it and then click Run. If you get an error when you try to save your code, click the Stop button and try again.