2024 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

The Raspberry Pi Pico W provides Wi-Fi capability and is the latest upgrade to the Pico. It is built around the RP2040 microcontroller, but it includes the Infineon CYW43439 device for both 802.11n (2.4 GHz Wi-Fi) and Bluetooth 5.2 compatibility. The Pico W includes many of the same key features as the Pico: digital peripherals (SPI, I2C, UART, and PWM); digital I/O (GPIO pins); analog input (ADC inputs); and on-board LED and temp sensor.

Data acquisition is a common topic in courses that encompass both electrical and computer disciplines. The goal of this paper is to utilize the Pico W as an inexpensive alternative to the data acquisition hardware used for lab projects in electrical and computer engineering and engineering technology programs. First, lab projects are shown to introduce students to MicroPython (a small subset of the Python standard library), Thonny (the software development environment for writing Python code and downloading it to the Pico W), and API functions for peripheral control. Examples include LED control, analog input, OLED display, and a web server. Then, data acquisition projects will be shown to illustrate the design of measurement systems. These include the design of a temperature measurement system and a digital voltmeter system. Projects contain engineering requirements, schematics, software code, and results. Then, an example of a student project utilizing data acquisition and Wi-Fi will be provided.