Cytron Maker Pi RP2040 features the first microcontroller designed by Raspberry Pi - RP2040, embedded on a robot controller board. The board comes with dual channel DC motor driver, 4 servo motor ports and 7 Grove I/O connectors, ready for your next DIY robot / motion control project. Now you can build robot, while trying out the new RP2040 chip.
CircuitPython firmware and a demo program are preloaded on the Maker Pi RP2040 by default. Power up your board with a USB Micro B cable (or via LIPO / VIN) to try out.
- On startup:
- play a melody tune
- perform a sequential LED lighting (blue LEDs)
- Forever loop:
- RGB (Neopixel) LEDs perform color fading
- Press GP20 push button:
- light up all blue LEDs
- run DC Motor 1 forward and DC Motor 2 backward, both at 50% speed
- move all Servo motors to 0 degree
- Press GP21 push button:
- turn off all blue LEDs
- stop both DC Motor 1 & 2
- move all Servo motors to 180 degree
Besides, Maker Pi RP2040 also comes with four DC motors quick test buttons. You may press the onboard M1A, M1B, M2A or M2B push buttons to run your motors without writing any code. All these are very useful for checking the basic functionalities of the board for the first time.
We provide some example code in CircuitPython and MicroPython for your reference. Make sure the correct firmware is loaded on your Maker Pi RP2040 before you start coding with either languages.
We've created the CircuitPython .UF2 firmware for Maker Pi RP2040 with helps from the awesome folks at CircuitPython and Adafruit. It includes the libraries to work with Maker Pi RP2040's built-in features, eg. DC & servo motors control and Neopixel LEDs. The adafruit_motor, neopixel and simpleio libraries are embedded by default, so there's no need to add them to the lib folder of the CIRCUITPY drive manually.
Follow this guide to load the CircuitPython firmware on your Maker Pi RP2040. If you see CIRCUITPY drive appears on your computer, it means CircuitPython firmware is already loaded on board and you are good to go!
The code.py file on the CIRCUITPY drive (of any new Maker Pi RP2040) is the demo program which comes with the board. You can open this file with any code editor to view or modify it. Mu Editor is highly recommended for coding the CircuitPython. Follow Adafruit's guide to install the software.
Besides modifying the demo program, you can also open one of the CircuitPython examples here. You can copy the code and paste it in the code.py file on your CIRCUITPY drive. Save the file after making desired changes and the code will run as soon as the file is done saving.
Please wait until the file is successfully saved before resetting or unplugging your board!
Follow this guide to load the MicroPython firmware on your Maker Pi RP2040.