Originally written as part of Get Started with MicroPython on Raspberry Pi Pico: The Official Guide, my guide to physical computing on Raspberry Pi’s first-ever microcontroller development board, the tutorial builds in the same way as the other projects in the book – introducing core concepts then building step-by-step from a minimum-viable project up to a fully-functional completed device.
As with other tutorials written for the book, full source code – in MicroPython – is provided, along with a wiring diagram which shows how to wire up a potentiometer using two or three pins and why that makes a difference to how it works. The project can be attacked with no additional hardware, however: the temperature sensor is built into the RP2040 microcontroller on board the Raspberry Pi Pico, and readers are free to skip building the potentiometer circuit if they don’t have the component lying around.
The MagPi Issue 107 is available at now at all good newsagents and supermarkets, online with global delivery, or as a Creative Commons-licensed DRM-free zero-cost PDF download on the official website.