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I'm interested in low level programming, not electrical engineering. While I understand the logical stacks, registers, pins in and out, I'm not great at solderi

I'm interested in low level programming, not electrical engineering. While I understand the logical stacks, registers, pins in and out, I'm not great at soldering. I can stick components on a breadboard, I don't have the knowledge of what resistors I need with an LED, etc. Basically I want to test sensors and motors without needing to lay out the physical circuit correctly or adding to troubleshooting. So either a development board of some kind, or a modular plug-in system.

smoldesu 5y ago
Most people will use some combination of breadboarding/GPIO-wizardry to achieve what you're describing. I don't think there's an "elegant" solution to something like that.
MrsPeaches 5y ago
Is something like this [1] the kind of thing you are looking for? [1] https://www.smart-prototyping.com/Qwiic.html https://www.smart-prototyping.com/Qwiic.html Disclaimer: I have never used these and don't know how good they are.
ChuckMcM 5y ago
Cool! That is a great way to start. If you look at the Crowdsupply page, for $32 + shipping you can get the Pico and a set of 'shields'. The interesting one for you would be the "Grove" shield. "Grove" is a connector / pinout standard that was created and supported by Seeed Studio (see: https://www.mouser.com/new/seeed-studio/seeed-studio-grove/ https://www.mouser.com/new/seeed-studio/seeed-studio-grove/ for a video on the infrastructure and ideas behind Grove (also see the Seeed wiki here: https://www.mouser.com/new/seeed-studio/seeed-studio-grove/ https://www.mouser.com/new/seeed-studio/seeed-studio-grove/) There are a LOT of different boards you can get with sensors and what not on Grove and programming them in Micropython is supported because that is what Seeed uses (calling it Ardupy). You will have to solder the pins on the Pico and the Grove shield, but after that you can just plug them together with cables. Grove typically uses either a GPIO (on/off), and analog I/O, or an I^2C per board. You will need to know enough about those to match up the boards with the right connector on the shield. And then its just programming. One of the things I've used when I've helped people learn about this stuff is to use the Grove temperature and humidty sensor and the NodeD1 (this is an early ESP8266 design that also runs micro python). A Python program that reads the sensor and then does an http GET on a web server with a CGI that records temperature and humidity. Control flow looks like this: while true: temp = read_temp() humid = read_humid() http.get("http://192.168.1.5/environment.cgi?t=" . temp . "?h=" . humid) sleep(10) The same web server has a page that uses D3 to plot temperature and humidity over time. Very simple and easy to do. (and yes you learn to read the temperature and humidity over i2c, and set the chip up to connect to the wifi hotspot)
- mysterydip 5y ago
  Thanks so much for the detailed reply, I'll spend a while digesting it!

smoldesu 5y ago

Most people will use some combination of breadboarding/GPIO-wizardry to achieve what you're describing. I don't think there's an "elegant" solution to something like that.

MrsPeaches 5y ago

Is something like this [1] the kind of thing you are looking for? [1] https://www.smart-prototyping.com/Qwiic.html https://www.smart-prototyping.com/Qwiic.html Disclaimer: I have never used these and don't know how good they are.

ChuckMcM 5y ago

Cool! That is a great way to start. If you look at the Crowdsupply page, for $32 + shipping you can get the Pico and a set of 'shields'. The interesting one for you would be the "Grove" shield. "Grove" is a connector / pinout standard that was created and supported by Seeed Studio (see: https://www.mouser.com/new/seeed-studio/seeed-studio-grove/ https://www.mouser.com/new/seeed-studio/seeed-studio-grove/ for a video on the infrastructure and ideas behind Grove (also see the Seeed wiki here: https://www.mouser.com/new/seeed-studio/seeed-studio-grove/ https://www.mouser.com/new/seeed-studio/seeed-studio-grove/) There are a LOT of different boards you can get with sensors and what not on Grove and programming them in Micropython is supported because that is what Seeed uses (calling it Ardupy). You will have to solder the pins on the Pico and the Grove shield, but after that you can just plug them together with cables. Grove typically uses either a GPIO (on/off), and analog I/O, or an I^2C per board. You will need to know enough about those to match up the boards with the right connector on the shield. And then its just programming. One of the things I've used when I've helped people learn about this stuff is to use the Grove temperature and humidty sensor and the NodeD1 (this is an early ESP8266 design that also runs micro python). A Python program that reads the sensor and then does an http GET on a web server with a CGI that records temperature and humidity. Control flow looks like this: while true: temp = read_temp() humid = read_humid() http.get("http://192.168.1.5/environment.cgi?t=" . temp . "?h=" . humid) sleep(10) The same web server has a page that uses D3 to plot temperature and humidity over time. Very simple and easy to do. (and yes you learn to read the temperature and humidity over i2c, and set the chip up to connect to the wifi hotspot)

mysterydip 5y ago
Thanks so much for the detailed reply, I'll spend a while digesting it!