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Chapters

This textbook is organized into 20 chapters covering 531 concepts from the learning graph.

Chapter Overview

  1. Computational Thinking and Debugging for Physical Computing -- Introduces the four pillars of computational thinking, physical computing vocabulary, and the debugging and design-iteration mindset used throughout the book.
  2. Choosing the Right Raspberry Pi Product -- Surveys the Pico, Pico W, Pico 2, Pi 500+, and Pi 5 hardware family and gives readers a decision framework for picking hardware by budget, task, and classroom constraints.
  3. Breadboard Wiring and Electrical Fundamentals -- Covers breadboard mechanics, GPIO pins, and core electrical concepts (voltage, current, resistance, Ohm's Law) needed before any circuit is built.
  4. Digital I/O, PWM, and the MicroPython Workflow -- Teaches digital/analog I/O, PWM, circuit diagramming, and the MicroPython/Thonny workflow, ending with the first blink-an-LED program.
  5. Programmable LED Art with NeoPixel/WS2812B -- Covers addressable RGB LEDs, color theory, and animation programming for the $15 breadboard NeoPixel kit.
  6. Buttons, Photoresistors, and Analog Sensor Input -- Covers buttons, photoresistors, and a range of analog/digital sensors (temperature, humidity, sound) with debouncing and filtering techniques.
  7. Building and Programming a No-Display STEM Robot -- Walks through motors, motor drivers, distance/line sensors, and autonomous behavior programming for the ~$19 robot kit.
  8. Adding an OLED Display and Expressive Behaviors -- Adds an OLED display, I2C/SPI protocols, and facial-expression/personality programming to the robot for the ~$35 tier.
  9. Real-Time Clocks and Display Drivers for Clocks and Watches -- Covers RTC modules, time synchronization, and the display driver families (seven-segment, LCD, TFT, round) used to build custom clocks.
  10. Wireless Communication with the Pico W -- Covers Wi-Fi, HTTP, MQTT, and Bluetooth Low Energy for networked and swarm-robotics projects.
  11. Booting, the Desktop, and the Linux Terminal on the Pi 500+ -- Introduces Raspberry Pi OS, the desktop environment, and core shell/file-navigation commands.
  12. File Management, Packages, and Remote Access on the Pi 500+ -- Covers file operations, package management, and remote access (SSH/VNC) for classroom administration.
  13. Programming the Pi 500+'s Per-Key RGB Keyboard Lighting -- Covers the per-key RGB API and lighting-effect programming, including reactive and classroom-relevant use cases.
  14. Raspberry Pi 5 Hardware: Storage, Camera, and Cooling -- Covers Pi 5-specific hardware: NVMe/PCIe storage, camera modules, cooling, and power delivery.
  15. Software Setup and the Developer Environment on the Raspberry Pi 5 -- Covers Git, virtual environments, and headless setup used across the AI-tier projects.
  16. The AI HAT+ and Neural Network Fundamentals -- Introduces the Hailo accelerator and core ML vocabulary (models, training vs. inference, accuracy metrics).
  17. Building a Real-Time Object Detection Pipeline -- Covers model deployment, quantization, and the camera-to-model real-time detection pipeline.
  18. Audio Signal Processing, Sound Classification, and Speech I/O -- Covers microphones, FFT/spectrograms, sound/keyword classification, and speech-to-text/text-to-speech.
  19. Budgeting, Sourcing, and Classroom Logistics -- Covers classroom budgeting and component sourcing under supply constraints, plus safety and classroom-management practices.
  20. Capstone Design Challenges and Course Wrap-Up -- Covers the engineering design process and cross-tier capstone projects that combine multiple hardware families.

How to Use This Textbook

Learning STEM with Raspberry Pi Hardware is designed to be read like an encyclopedia: dip in at whichever hardware tier fits your budget, grade level, and available class time rather than reading start to finish. Within a chapter, concepts are still ordered so that each one builds on what came before it, and chapters that depend on an earlier hardware tier (for example, the AI vision chapters depending on the Raspberry Pi 5 hardware chapter) link to those prerequisite chapters explicitly.

Note: Each chapter includes a list of concepts covered. Make sure to complete prerequisites before moving to advanced chapters.