Asee peer logo

Evaluating the Use of MicroPython and the Raspberry Pi Pico in Laboratory Activities for Undergraduate Classes in Engineering Electromagnetics

Download Paper |

Conference

2022 Spring ASEE Middle Atlantic Section Conference

Location

Newark, New Jersey

Publication Date

April 22, 2022

Start Date

April 22, 2022

End Date

April 23, 2022

Page Count

2

DOI

10.18260/1-2--40051

Permanent URL

https://strategy.asee.org/40051

Download Count

429

Paper Authors

biography

Eve Klopf High Point University

visit author page

I'm an Associate Professor in the Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering at High Point University. I earned my PhD in Electrical Engineering at Colorado State University in 2011; my PhD work focused on computational electromagnetics. As faculty, my interests and active projects are in the areas of computational electromagnetics, microwave engineering and engineering education.

visit author page

biography

Matthew Thomas Costantino

visit author page

I am an undergraduate sophomore Electrical Engineering major at High Point University.

visit author page

Download Paper |

Abstract

Evaluating the Use of MicroPython and the Raspberry Pi Pico in Laboratory Activities for Undergraduate Classes in Engineering Electromagnetics

Eve Klopf and Matthew Costantino Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, High Point University

When creating laboratory activities to support upper-division undergraduate classes in engineering electromagnetics, a straightforward and conceptually useful activity is for undergraduate engineering students to analyze and build a basic electrical component and then learn how it can be used as part of a simple sensor. A variety of microcontrollers can be used to facilitate laboratory activities of this type; this paper examines the use of the Raspberry Pi Pico and MicroPython for these laboratory activities.

The Raspberry Pi Pico is a relatively new board within the Raspberry Pi family; its price, measurement resolution and ability to run MicroPython and CircuitPython make it a very interesting option for use in an undergraduate engineering laboratory curriculum where a simple microcontroller is required. Presented are a comparison of several example laboratory activities where the activity is first structured to utilize Python, MicroPython and the Raspberry Pi Pico and then repeated with the more commonly used Arduino Uno, Arduino C and Matlab. Comparison details include an analysis of the differences and similarities in scaffolding the simulation, design and construction portions of the lab activities, including the set-up and functionality of the microcontrollers with regards to measurement of voltage, resistance, and capacitance within the lab activities.

The use of MicroPython to support sensor activities in engineering electromagnetics allows for the use of Python as the main programming language for the overall set of laboratory activities. Given the increasing popularity of Python as a programming language in both engineering and the sciences, engineering students will benefit from increased familiarity with the Python programming language.

Klopf, E., & Costantino, M. T. (2022, April), Evaluating the Use of MicroPython and the Raspberry Pi Pico in Laboratory Activities for Undergraduate Classes in Engineering Electromagnetics Paper presented at 2022 Spring ASEE Middle Atlantic Section Conference, Newark, New Jersey. 10.18260/1-2--40051

ASEE holds the copyright on this document. It may be read by the public free of charge. Authors may archive their work on personal websites or in institutional repositories with the following citation: © 2022 American Society for Engineering Education. Other scholars may excerpt or quote from these materials with the same citation. When excerpting or quoting from Conference Proceedings, authors should, in addition to noting the ASEE copyright, list all the original authors and their institutions and name the host city of the conference. - Last updated April 1, 2015