> I saw that the chip itself is surface mount, would I need to make my own PCBs to be able to make more "permanent" projects with it? If you want to directly u

> I saw that the chip itself is surface mount, would I need to make my own PCBs to be able to make more "permanent" projects with it? If you want to directly use an RP2040 chip: yes, but you can do that for a few $ at e.g. jlcpcb where they can directly assemble the SMD components on the board for you. If you build your own "more permanent" project, you most likely want to build a PCB anyway, to integrate all the peripherals and connectors you need. Otherwise there is the RPi Pico board which is a small PCB with the RP2040 on it. It's the standard "small PCB where you can install a pin header" type of development / eval board. > Also, what kinds of external things I would need to get started, like specific programmer hardware, etc. I helped someone else with an RP2040 project recently and apparently all you need is some crystal for the clock, some flash chip for the program code, potentially a voltage regulator, and either a USB connector or an SWD connector (or ideally both). If you have SWD, you can program and debug the RP2040 from another RP2040 based module (there is "SWD programmer" firmware available, there is also the "Raspi Debug Probe" available now), and if you have USB and add some form of boot switch, you can directly program it via USB.