How to Get Started With Raspberry Pi Pico W in 2024 | Write Your First LED Blink Program

If you’re new to the world of microcontrollers or looking to dive into the latest advancements, this step-by-step guide will help you get started with Raspberry Pi Pico and embark on your coding journey. From setting up your development environment to diving into hands-on projects, this guide will equip you with the knowledge and skills to unlock the full potential of Raspberry Pi Pico.

• Raspberry Pi Pico: Choose the Pico H or W variant for pre-soldered headers.
• Micro-USB Cable: For connecting the Pico to your computer.
• Thonny Python IDE: A user-friendly IDE for writing MicroPython code

• Connect the Raspberry Pi Pico to your computer using the Micro-USB cable by pressing the Boot shell button.
• Your computer should recognize the Pico as an external device.
• You need to go to download the latest firmware https://micropython.org/download/
• Look for Pico Raspberry Pi and click to find the latest available firmware
• Download the latest xxx.uf2 firmware from the Releases

• To download the Thonny you need to go to it’s official website https://thonny.org/
• Click on download as per your operation system
• Install the Thonny IDE from your downloaded folder
• Open the Thonny and click on Run -> Configure Interpreter
• You need to choose MicroPython (Raspberry Pi Pico) from the list and also choose the PORT for Raspberry Pi Pico

import machine
import time

led =  machine.Pin('LED', machine.Pin.OUT)

while True:
    led.on()
    time.sleep(0.5)
    led.off()
    time.sleep(0.5)

• Click on Save button form Menu bar
• Popup will come up and will ask where you want to save the code
• Save your MicroPython script on the Pico by giving name as “blink.py“.
• Run the script and observe the onboard LED blink, it should started blinking in every half second.

Check out this detailed guide: How To Get Started with Raspberry Pi Pico in 2024

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