Pico Inventor's Kit Experiment 1 - Digital Inputs & Outputs

Experiment 1 from the Inventors Kit for Raspberry Pi Pico, in which we explore Digital Inputs & Outputs. Included in this resource are code downloads, a description of the experiment and also a video walk-through. This resource provides additional help and is not meant to replace the documentation that ships with the kit.

The Raspberry Pi Pico is a compact microcontroller based on the RP2040 processor - Raspberry Pi’s first in-house designed silicon. The RP2040 on the Pico uses 2 ARM processor cores, and also has 4 programmable IO controllers (PIO). These are like mini processors, and can help the Pico complete more complex tasks than it would otherwise be able to do. The Pico has 28 general purpose IO pins (GPIO), and 3 of these can also be used as Analogue inputs. The Pico can be programmed in several languages. The experiments in these resources are written in the Thonny Editor using MicroPython.

Pico Inventor's Kit Exp' 1 - Digital Inputs & Outputs

In this simple first experiment we will use a button to control the state of the LED built into the Raspberry Pi Pico.

• To use a switch as an input.
• To use the ‘if’ command to determine the state of the switch.
• To use the on-board LED as an output to indicate the state of the switch.
• To write and run a program on the Pico board.

Video Walk-through:

Exp 1 - The Code

All experiments are coded in MicroPython in Thonny. To open in Thonny, copy and past the code below directly into the Thonny editor.

'''
Kitronik Inventor's Kit Exp 1

Turns an LED on and off in response to a press on the button that is connected to GP15.

The Pico has an on-board LED you can control, connected to GP25.

The switch is connected from the 3V3 output header to GP15, which is configured as an input.
'''
import machine

# Setup an input button with a human-readable name and enable the internal pull-down resistor
switch = machine.Pin(15, machine.Pin.IN, machine.Pin.PULL_DOWN)
LED = machine.Pin(25, machine.Pin.OUT) # Setup the onboard LED Pin as an output

# The loop will run forever
# Sets the LED output to be equal to the switch input (e.g. switch pressed = LED on)
while True:
    if switch.value():
        LED.value(True)
    else:
        LED.value(False)

Inventors Kit Extra Resources:

Each of the ten experiments has been designed to ease you into coding and physical computing for the for the Raspberry Pi Pico. The experiments have been chosen to cover the key concepts of physical computing and they also increase in difficulty as you progress. This resource has been put together to provide additional information for this experiment and has not been designed to replace the booklet. The majority of the information you will need to perform and understand this experiment is contained in the booklet.

If you are new to coding and physical computing, even the least complex examples can be quite challenging. With this in mind, we created walk-through videos for each of the experiments. Our presenter talks you through the circuit in a way that backs up the information given in the booklet but in a style that some might find easier to absorb. As well as having a video walk-through, each page also contains the code. Although it is always good to tackle the code yourself, it can be handy for testing your circuit quickly. The code has been heavily commented as an extra learning resource. To get the most out of the experiment, once you've tested your circuit have a go at coding the experiment from scratch.

Follow the links in the table below:

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