Raspberry Pi's: an interactive beginner's course

Raspberry Pi's is an interactive Raspberry Pi course that takes you from unboxing a Raspberry Pi 5 to planning your own projects. In 30 short sections it covers the parts of the board, what you need to start, installing Raspberry Pi OS, the Linux terminal, the 40-pin GPIO header and 3.3 volt logic, blinking an LED, reading a button with Python, I2C and SPI sensors, HATs, wiring modules, the camera and project planning.

It opens with a 3D tour of a Pi 5, from the processor and memory to the GPIO header, and every later section uses that same board.

What the course covers

Setting up

A Pi 5 needs a USB-C power supply (the official one gives 5 V at up to 5 A), a microSD card, and a keyboard, mouse and screen or another computer to log in from. You copy Raspberry Pi OS, a version of Linux, onto the card with the free Raspberry Pi Imager, then learn enough of the terminal to move around and install things.

The GPIO pins

The 40-pin GPIO header is what makes a Pi more than a small computer. Each general purpose pin can switch an output, such as an LED, or read an input, such as a button. The pins work at 3.3 V, so the course spends a section on what is safe: connecting 5 V to a GPIO pin can damage it.

from gpiozero import LED
from time import sleep

led = LED(17)
while True:
    led.on()
    sleep(1)
    led.off()
    sleep(1)

Sensors and projects

Smarter sensors send numbers over shared buses, I2C or SPI. HATs plug onto all 40 pins at once, and every module labels its power, ground and signal pins. Most projects follow one pattern: a sensor reads the world, Python decides, and something happens.

Try a question from the course

An LED needs a resistor so the current stays small enough for the LED and the pin. A GPIO pin set high gives 3.3 V. The LED takes its share first, say 2.0 V, and the resistor gets what is left. With a 330 Ω resistor:

Now work out the current for a new LED and resistor, then press Mark to check your answer in the course.

Who this course is for

• Beginners with a new Raspberry Pi who want to go from setup to a working project.
• Students on computing, electronics or design and technology courses who want to control real hardware with code.
• Makers and parents planning projects such as weather stations, cameras or home gadgets.

What you need to know first

The course page lists Electricity and Programming Languages first. You need to know what voltage, current and resistance are for the LED and wiring sections, and be comfortable reading short Python programs. You can follow the course without a Pi, but having one to try things on helps.

How long it takes

There are 30 sections and most take a few minutes to read; building along takes longer. Learners without a plan can open two sections of a course a day, in order, so the whole course takes 15 days. A plan removes the daily limit and lets you go straight to any topic, such as sensors.

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