Situatie
Cytron, the Malaysian maker of some of the best Raspberry Pi and Raspberry Pi Pico add-ons is back with another add-on for the Raspberry Pi Pico. The $14 Robo Pico is a delightful platform for learning that builds upon previous Cytron boards, namely the Cytron Maker Pi RP2040, to provide a low cost and even lower friction entry point into Raspberry Pi Pico robotics.
Around the purple PCB are connections for motors, servos, Grove and Stemma QT (Maker port), Neopixels, buzzer and an onboard power management system to charge LiPo batteries. Supporting the board is your choice of Pico compatible programming language. Normally we are crying out for a module to abstract the complexities of a board, but in this case, CircuitPython handles all of that for us.
The board is densely packed with connections and each of them has a GPIO reference printed on the silkscreen. This feature is worth the price alone. We don’t need to reference a datasheet or website for the GPIO reference, it is right there on the board. Every component and connection has a GPIO reference, including extra information for the Grove and Maker ports which is printed on the reverse. Speaking of the reverse, the board will sit level on a desk, but not flat. There are a number of surface mount soldered components. If you want to secure the board to your project, use the four M3 screw points along with stand offs.
The design of Robo Pico is close to Cytron’s other Maker boards, but it closely resembles the Cytron Maker Pi RP2040. In fact the two are very closely matched. The only differences being the orientation of two Grove connectors and the Maker Pi RP2040 having an onboard RP2040 SoC. Robo Pico benefits from requiring a Pico to be inserted into the board, and that means we can use a Pico or Pico W in our projects. As long as Raspberry Pi retains the same form factor and pinout, we can use Robo Pico with future Raspberry Pi Pico boards.
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