With a nod to the micro:bit, the newest board from Elecfreaks, Pico:ed borrows the academic microcontrollers kind issue however locations Raspberry Pi’s RP2040 SoC agency at its coronary heart. The announcement, which involves us through official Raspberry Pi reseller The Pi Hut, unveils a board which might use equipment designed for the micro:bit, whereas additionally retaining compatibility with RP2040 programming languages. If the shape issue and the {hardware} work, Pico:ed may function in our Greatest RP2040 Boards information.
Often known as the Pico:ed, the brand new board comes through Elecfreaks, and suits certainly one of Raspberry Pi’s succesful RP2040 chips instead of the v2’s Nordic nRF52833 Arm Cortex-M4 microcontroller. This has the impact of elevating the processor pace from 64Mhz to an overclockable 133MHz, the RAM from 128Kb to 264Kb, and the inner flash storage to 2Mb from 512Kb. The board retains the micro:bit’s dimensions (52mm X 42mm, 2in x 1.6in) and weighs simply 10g (0.35oz).
The Pico:ed incorporates a bigger LED matrix than its predecessor, a 7×17 grid of 119 lights, and has a buzzer, plus two built-in buttons. By retaining the Micro:bit’s edge connector and MicroPython language, it needs to be appropriate (with only a tweak to your code) with present micro:bit equipment, which embrace ultrasonic distance sensors and air-quality sensors in addition to extra superior robotics. What’s lacking from Pico:ed in comparison with the micro:bit is radio / Bluetooth. On each fashions of micro:bit there’s a fundamental radio module able to transmitting information between a number of micro:bits and for fundamental Bluetooth communication.
Creator Elecfreaks already has pattern tasks and technical information accessible on its web site, and it needs to be easy to adapt present micro:bit tasks to the brand new microcontroller if wanted. What might be extra enjoyable is changing RP2040 tasks to the brand new board, and getting them into the arms of anybody desirous to study the fundamentals of electronics and coding.
Curiously, the Pico:ed can also be cheaper than the micro:bit, with a v2.2 board costing $15.41 at The Pi Hut as we write, whereas the Pico:ed undercuts it at $13.35, and is just $12.90 from the Elecfreaks retailer. The excellent news is it seems to be in inventory. For now. Tom’s {Hardware} has secured a unit for evaluation.