“The Pico is a great little microprocessor that can substitute for an Arduino Uno. If you have knowledge of the Arduino IDE and existing sketches, you don't need to rewrite the code in Python; the Pico can run the sketch "as is". You will of course need to use the Pico's GPIO pins which are mostly the same numbering as for the Arduino, and maybe do a little soldering, but that's the fun in making things. If your project doesn't require WiFi connectivity, the plain Pico is ideal, and at 3.90GBP a real bargain. Use your Arduino for testing your project; then replace it with a Pico and just let it run every time you power up. Many thanks to the PiHut Team for a fast and reliable service, as usual.”
“Haven't really delved into it yet however at £3.90 I'm hoping it's a more cost effective and more powerful replacement for an Arduino NANO as a lighting controller on an RC car.”
“Raspberry Pi Pico
Readers of Practical Electronics magazine in the UK or Silicon Chip magazine in Australia and New Zealand with be very familiar with the Micromite and the numerous projects that use it. For those not familiar with the Micromite it is a single-board computer that uses the Basic programming language and has built-in support for colour touch screens and many different types of modules. A quick Google search will offer much more detail.
Recently, the Micromite system has been ported to the Raspberry Pi Pico and is called PicoMite. The PicoMite is many times more powerful than the Micromite and with many more features. It takes seconds to set up and is ready ‘out-of-the-box’! No messing about with libraries to use colour touch screens, real-time clocks, temperature sensors, SD cards etc. – it’s all built-in.
The Raspberry Pi Pico is a lot cheaper than a Micromite system and given its extra features and performance is a ‘no-brainer’ for all existing and future Micromite / PicoMite projects.”
