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

Throughout this book you’ll be learning about Raspberry Pi Pico, but the skills you learn will also apply to any other development board based around the Raspberry Pi RP2040 microcontroller – and even other devices, so long as they are compatible with the MicroPython programming language.