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Quiz: Wireless Connectivity and Internet of Things

Test your understanding of Pico W Wi-Fi, HTTP requests, JSON, NTP, and web servers with these questions.

1. What hardware feature does the Pico W have that the standard Raspberry Pi Pico does NOT?

  1. A faster processor — the Pico W runs at 240 MHz instead of 133 MHz
  2. A built-in Wi-Fi and Bluetooth radio using the CYW43439 chip
  3. More GPIO pins — the Pico W has 36 pins instead of 26
  4. An analog-to-digital converter — the standard Pico lacks ADC capability
Show Answer

The correct answer is B. The Pico W adds a CYW43439 wireless chip from Infineon (formerly Cypress) that provides 2.4 GHz Wi-Fi and Bluetooth LE. The processor (RP2040), GPIO count, and ADC capability are identical between the Pico and Pico W. The wireless radio connects to the RP2040 via SPI internally, leaving all GPIO pins available for your project.

Concept Tested: Pico W Wi-Fi / Pico W Hardware

2. What does the following MicroPython code do?

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import network
wlan = network.WLAN(network.STA_IF)
wlan.active(True)
wlan.connect("MySSID", "mypassword")
  1. Creates a Wi-Fi access point named "MySSID" with password "mypassword"
  2. Connects the Pico W to an existing Wi-Fi network as a client (station mode)
  3. Scans for all available Wi-Fi networks and stores their names
  4. Disconnects from any current Wi-Fi network and switches to offline mode
Show Answer

The correct answer is B. network.STA_IF selects "station" mode — the Pico W acts as a client joining an existing network (like your home router). network.AP_IF would create a new access point. After calling wlan.connect(), you must wait in a loop checking wlan.isconnected() until the connection is established before making HTTP requests.

Concept Tested: Pico W Wi-Fi Connection / network.WLAN

3. What does the urequests.get(url) function do in MicroPython?

  1. Downloads a URL and saves it to a file named "get.txt" on the Pico
  2. Sends an HTTP GET request to a web server and returns the response including status code and body
  3. Registers the Pico W with a URL shortening service for easier access
  4. Opens a TCP socket that waits for incoming connections from the specified URL
Show Answer

The correct answer is B. urequests.get(url) is the MicroPython equivalent of a web browser requesting a page. It opens a TCP connection to the server, sends an HTTP GET request, and returns a response object. You can then check response.status_code (200 = OK), read response.text for the raw text, or call response.json() to parse the body as a Python dictionary.

Concept Tested: HTTP GET Request / urequests Module

4. A Pico W receives this JSON response from a weather API: {"temp": 22.5, "humidity": 65}. How do you extract the temperature in MicroPython?

  1. response.temp
  2. response.split(",")[0]
  3. data = response.json(); temp = data["temp"]
  4. ujson.loads(22.5)
Show Answer

The correct answer is C. After getting the HTTP response, call response.json() which uses ujson internally to parse the JSON string into a Python dictionary. Then access values with standard dictionary syntax: data["temp"] returns 22.5. Option A would work in JavaScript but not Python. Option B would give you a raw string fragment, not a numeric value.

Concept Tested: JSON Parsing / ujson Module

5. What is NTP, and why is it useful for Pico W projects?

  1. Network Transfer Protocol — the method used to upload Python files to the Pico over Wi-Fi
  2. Network Time Protocol — a service that provides the current date and time over the internet so the Pico can keep an accurate clock
  3. NeoPixel Transfer Protocol — the serial format used to control WS2812B LED strips
  4. Node Transmission Protocol — the way IoT devices register themselves with a cloud server
Show Answer

The correct answer is B. NTP (Network Time Protocol) is a standard internet protocol that delivers the current UTC time from time servers around the world. MicroPython's ntptime.settime() contacts an NTP server and sets the Pico's internal real-time clock. This is useful for timestamping sensor data, triggering actions at specific times, or displaying an accurate clock.

Concept Tested: NTP Time Sync / ntptime Module

6. In a simple Pico W web server, what does a "socket" represent?

  1. A physical hardware connector on the Pico board that accepts GPIO cables
  2. A software endpoint that listens for incoming network connections on a specific port
  3. The wireless antenna built into the CYW43439 chip
  4. A file that stores the web page HTML content on the Pico's flash memory
Show Answer

The correct answer is B. A socket is a software abstraction for a network connection endpoint. When you create a server socket and bind it to port 80, the Pico waits for web browsers to connect. When a browser visits the Pico's IP address, the socket accepts the connection, reads the HTTP request, and your code sends back an HTML response. This is how the Pico becomes a tiny web server.

Concept Tested: Web Server / TCP Socket

7. What is the difference between TCP and UDP?

  1. TCP sends data faster but UDP checks for errors and corrects them
  2. TCP guarantees delivery and order of packets; UDP sends packets without guaranteed delivery, making it faster but less reliable
  3. TCP is for wireless networks; UDP is for wired Ethernet connections only
  4. TCP is used for sending data to servers; UDP is used for receiving data from servers
Show Answer

The correct answer is B. TCP (Transmission Control Protocol) establishes a connection, numbers packets, and retransmits any that are lost — guaranteeing complete, in-order delivery. This makes it ideal for HTTP web requests and file transfers. UDP (User Datagram Protocol) just fires packets without checking if they arrived, making it faster and lower-overhead — useful for real-time applications like video streaming or sensor broadcasting where a missed packet is better than a delayed one.

Concept Tested: TCP vs UDP

8. A student stores their Wi-Fi password in secrets.py and adds secrets.py to .gitignore. Why is this important?

  1. Git cannot store Python files — only markdown and text files — so secrets.py must be excluded
  2. Keeping credentials out of version control prevents accidentally sharing passwords publicly when pushing to GitHub
  3. .gitignore compresses the secrets.py file to make it smaller on the Pico's flash storage
  4. MicroPython requires secrets to be in a separate file and cannot read them from the main script
Show Answer

The correct answer is B. If you commit your Wi-Fi password or API keys into a public Git repository and push to GitHub, anyone on the internet can read them. Storing credentials in a separate secrets.py file and adding it to .gitignore ensures Git never tracks that file, so it stays on your computer only. The main code imports from secrets to use the values without exposing them.

Concept Tested: Wi-Fi Credentials / Security Best Practices

9. What does upip.install("package-name") do on a Pico W?

  1. Updates the MicroPython firmware to include the named package
  2. Downloads and installs a MicroPython library from the internet directly onto the Pico W's file system
  3. Uploads a local package file from the host computer to the Pico W over USB
  4. Pins the package version so it cannot be accidentally updated later
Show Answer

The correct answer is B. upip is MicroPython's package installer (similar to Python's pip). When the Pico W has Wi-Fi access, upip.install("some-library") downloads the package from micropython.org's package repository over the internet and saves it to the Pico's flash file system. This lets you add libraries without manually copying files from a computer.

Concept Tested: upip Package Manager / MicroPython Package Installation

10. A student's Pico W successfully connects to Wi-Fi (wlan.isconnected() returns True) but urequests.get() fails with a timeout error. What is the most likely cause?

  1. The Wi-Fi password is stored incorrectly in secrets.py
  2. The URL is wrong, the server is down, or the Pico W does not have access to the internet (e.g., firewall or captive portal blocking it)
  3. urequests is not installed — it must be added with upip before use
  4. The Pico W can only connect to Wi-Fi or make HTTP requests, not both at the same time
Show Answer

The correct answer is B. If wlan.isconnected() is True, the Pico W has joined the local Wi-Fi network successfully. However, local network connectivity does not guarantee internet access. A school or library network may have a captive portal (login page) or firewall blocking HTTP requests. The server might also be temporarily down. Check the URL in a browser on another device to verify the server is reachable.

Concept Tested: HTTP GET Request / Wi-Fi Connection Troubleshooting