Introduction to Electronics
Physics Electronic Support Services Introduction to Electronics
Course materials

Introduction to Electronics

Build two boards and program them. You start with the Analog Shield, where you learn through-hole soldering, then move on to surface-mount soldering with the Phyduino Pico, an Arduino Uno-style RP2040 board that the shield plugs onto. You then program the pair in the Arduino IDE or in MicroPython. Everything you need for the course is linked below.

Through-hole & SMT soldering Analog front end RP2040 Arduino MicroPython Data acquisition
Course registration

Lab Summary

  1. 1
    Assemble the Analog Shield. Learn through-hole soldering first. The interactive BoM shows where each part goes.
  2. 2
    Assemble the Phyduino Pico. Move on to surface-mount soldering, working from the interactive BoM and the schematic.
  3. 3
    Choose a language. Arduino: set up the Arduino IDE with the Phyduino board package. MicroPython: set up the Phyduino Pico.
  4. 4
    Add the Analog Shield library and run the examples. Arduino library or MicroPython library.

Course materials

Hardware Arduino MicroPython
Analog Shield board, 3D view

Analog Shield

Through-hole shield with an LMT84 temperature sensor, two-stage op-amp amplifier, LEDs, encoder and potentiometer.

Board & assembly Hardware

Interactive BoM, schematic, PCB drawings, 3D model and datasheets.

iBoM Schematic
Arduino library Arduino

Library and example sketches for the shield on the Phyduino Pico.

Examples API reference
MicroPython library MicroPython

One-file library: copy it next to your main.py to use every part of the shield.

Set-up Examples API reference
Phyduino Pico board, top view

Phyduino Pico

Arduino Uno-style RP2040 development board with an on-board 12-bit ADC and USB-C power delivery.

Board & assembly Hardware

Interactive BoM, schematic, PCB drawings, 3D model and datasheets.

iBoM Schematic Pin-out
Board support package Arduino

Arduino IDE board package built on the Raspberry Pi pico-sdk.

Board page Examples API reference
MicroPython library MicroPython

Board pin names, on-board LED and ADC, and USB-C supply readings, built into the firmware.

Set-up mpremote PyCharm API reference

Arduino IDE downloads

Arduino IDE Download the Arduino IDE from arduino.cc Open
Board package Latest release of the Phyduino board package Open
Analog Shield library Latest release of the Analog Shield library (.ZIP) Open

MicroPython downloads

Firmware Latest Phyduino Pico firmware (.uf2) with MicroPython and the Phyduino library built in Open
mpremote Installing mpremote to copy files to the board and run code Open
PyCharm Setting up PyCharm for the Phyduino Pico Open
Analog Shield library Latest release of the Analog Shield MicroPython library (analog_shield.py) Open

Course Repositories

GitHub · Analog Shield GitHub · Phyduino Pico GitHub · Analog Shield Arduino library GitHub · Phyduino board support package GitHub · Analog Shield MicroPython GitHub · Phyduino Pico MicroPython