Pi-Powered Microcontroller is a Lego Astronaut with an RGB Suit

Raspberry Pi and Lego have an extended historical past in combination. Now not most effective have more than a few makers constructed Raspberry Pi initiatives that make the most of Lego bricks, however there is additionally the Raspberry Pi Construct HAT which lets you keep watch over motors and sensors from everybody’s favourite single-board computer. The impending FigPi microcontroller takes this union to the following degree the use of Raspberry Pi silicon (an RP2040 processor) on a circuit board that appears identical to a Lego minifig astronaut. 

The FigPi is the brainchild of Ben Shockley, an engineer who has already created a identical microcontroller board known as the Mini SAM M4 that is powered via an Atmel SAMD51G19A CPU. He sells the Mini SAM M4 for $25 to $30 on his web site, minifigboards.com (opens in new tab) in a selection of black, crimson, inexperienced, red or blue colours. Shockley has but to announce pricing or availability of the FigPi, having teased the brand new board by the use of his Mastodon account.

Having a look so much like a vintage Lego House astronaut (or Benny within the Lego motion pictures), the FigPi has plenty of a laugh options, together with a 9-light RGB LED array, a reset button and two Stemma ports at the again. The board is powered via a microUSB port that is additionally positioned at the again. The boot button at the entrance is programmable so it may possibly serve each its local serve as and no matter you select for it.

We do not know whether or not there will likely be any GPIO pins, however the image of the entrance (we’ve got no longer noticed a % of the again) does no longer display pin holes. The unique Mini SAM M4 minifig board has 26 GPIO pins as you’ll see within the image beneath, evaluating the two forums (the Mini SAM M4 is at the left and the FigPi is at the proper). 

(*9*)

Like its sibling, the FigPi will likely be programmable in CircuitPython. In his submit, Shockley known as out Adafruit and its programming language, announcing that he could not have constructed this with out them. CircuitPython permits you to do the whole thing from controlling lighting fixtures, motors and sensors to turning your board into an HID instrument similar to a keyboard, mouse or recreation controller. 

The rear Stemma ports must permit customers to attach a ton of various forums, together with all kinds of sensors.

Along with the loss of a worth or unencumber date, we should not have ultimate specifications for the FigPi. Then again, we think that it is going to be to be had by the use of Shockley’s web site and, if it is just like the Mini SAM M4, will are available quite a lot of colours.