A few months ago Raspberry launched the Pico - kinda like an Arduino Nano - and shortly after, James from Print-N-Play showed it off by making a mini game with it. So I thought it would be cool to use it as a UFO project! The Pico I also thought would be a chance to learn something new since a lot of the projects have been Arduino based.
One cool thing I love about this is that it is expandable (5 buttons were included but only 3 are needed) and Jame is also working on a way to make it so that other games can be loaded up on it! For this month though I couldn't pass up the SPACE INVADERS!!!
Project parts included:
- Raspberry Pico
- 5 Momentary Buttons with colored caps
- 0.96" OLED Screen
- 14 Wires
- 40 breakaway male pins
- Solderless Breadboard*
* Note: Sooooo initially I thought a breadboard would be handy for this project, buuuuut, the half board I included was found to MAYBE be a little too small. So after some discussion with James and Fernando, I thought it best to not use the breadboard... sooooo, bonus part for your own prototyping projects! lol
Though James suggests if you want to reuse the Pico for something else, to use the breadboard =P
Subscriber ThatDecade has submitted a case they developed, linked below. Thank you!
Instructions
Since this is a Raspberry Pico, you'll need to Download Thonny
When you first connect the Pico to your PC, it shows up as a drive. Download https://micropython.org/resources/firmware/rp2-pico-20210618-v1.16.uf2 and save it to the Pico "drive". Within a second the Pico will reboot.
In Thonny, go to Run > Select Interpreter. In the drop down, select "MicroPython (Raspberry Pi Pico), then the port number for your Pico
Go to https://raw.githubusercontent.com/micropython/micropython/master/drivers/display/ssd1306.py copy and paste it into a blank Thonny tab (File > New if one isn't already open) then go to File > Save As. You should be prompted to save to your computer or Pico... choose Pico and save it as ssd1306.py
You can then go to the "Download Code" button below to get the game file, do the same thing - copy the code to a tab in Thonny and Save As, choose Pico and name it main.py so it auto loads when not connected to your computer and powered by a plug.
After you wire up the Pico according to the diagram to the right... the game should work!
*Note: I totally forgot to order speakers >.< So you can skip that part.
This video should help you figure out how to load the game onto the Pico. Code linked to below is modified from what was used in the video to use buttons instead of a potentiometer.
The case files are still being worked on and tested at the time of this writing, please check back soon.
Soldering tips from James!