Hands-On Opportunities on CARPE — Columbus Arduino & Raspberry Pi Enthusiasts

Starter Kits

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

New to electronics, or just curious about tinkering? A couple of starter kits are on hand at meetings so you can try things out:

Blink your first LED
Put something on a display
Play with a few simple sensors

No pressure, no experience required — just an interest in learning and building. Bring a laptop and we’ll help you get set up, or get your laptop ready before you come.

On-Site IoT as a Service

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Some projects outgrow a USB cable: several devices that need to talk to each other, and somewhere to send their data. For those, one of our members brings the Deevnet Mobile Factory to meetings, a portable IoT platform that is its own mini-cloud. It gives you, on site:

A predictable network for your devices, with a Wi-Fi key of your own
MQTT messaging, with an account per device
Logs, and dashboards to chart them
All declared from your own Terraform, with no cloud account and nothing leaving the room

It works with your own devices and with a borrowed project kit, which joins as a device in your own space and goes back at the end of the night with nothing of yours left on it.

Bring Your Own Devices

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Bring your breadboard, microcontrollers and sensors — a Pico W, an ESP32, an Arduino, whatever you’re working with. Finished project or a bag of parts, it all fits. And bring your laptop, to work on code and flash your devices (get your laptop ready).

Plenty of projects need nothing but a USB cable. For multi-device projects that need a network and a backend, see On-Site IoT as a Service.

Get Your Laptop Ready

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Your laptop is how you write code and flash your board, so a little setup before the meeting means more time building. Pick one of the options below. If you’re not sure, start with Thonny. Windows, macOS and Linux all work.

These steps are written for the starter kit’s Raspberry Pi Pico, and work the same for a Pico W.

Option 1: MicroPython with Thonny (easiest)
#

Python on the board, and one small app on your laptop.

Hands-On Opportunities on CARPE — Columbus Arduino & Raspberry Pi Enthusiasts

Starter Kits

On-Site IoT as a Service

Bring Your Own Devices

Get Your Laptop Ready

Option 1: MicroPython with Thonny (easiest) #

Option 1: MicroPython with Thonny (easiest)
#