Piper Launches Piper Make Visual Coding Environment for the Raspberry Pi Pico, Hardware Subs

Free Blockly-based visual coding environment is joined by a $30 starter kit and $20 monthly hardware delivery service.

Programming education specialist Piper has announced the launch of Piper Make, a drag-and-drop visual coding environment, for the Raspberry Pi Pico — and a monthly subscription service which includes regular hardware deliveries.

Launched earlier this year, the $4 Raspberry Pi Pico -—powered by the RP2040, the first chip designed and launched by Raspberry Pi's in-house application specific integrated circuit (ASIC) team — has proven popular, and a range of new programming environments are appearing. Piper Make may have been beaten to the visual environment punch by BIPES, but the company behind the platform is hoping its monthly hardware subscription service will help it stand out.

"Our mission at Piper has always been to make the process of innovating with technology more accessible," claims Shree Bose, Piper co-founder. "The reimagined Piper Monthly Makers Club is an exciting step towards realizing this vision, using the power of the Raspberry Pi Pico as a base to build with new pieces of technology shipped to subscribers every month. With the easy drag-and-drop coding interface and projects on our Piper Make platform, the true magic becomes what our users will be able to create and share with the world."

The Piper Monthly Makers Club starts with the purchase of a $30 starter kit which includes a Raspberry Pi Pico, 830-point solderless breadboard, LEDs, resistors, switches, and wires; an extended kit adds a color sensor, ultrasonic range-finder, and temperature sensor at $75. Alternatively, those paying a $20 a month subscription fee will receive the basic starter kit plus monthly deliveries of additional hardware to extend their collection.

Piper Makes, meanwhile, is free for all to use. Like BIPES, it's a MicroPython visual programming environment based on the Google Blockly platform: Programs are created by dragging and dropping blocks from a palette onto a work area where they snap together like jigsaw pieces, forming a complete program which can be run on the Raspberry Pi Pico. All lessons developed as part of the Piper Monthly Makers Club will be available on the Piper Makes platform for free, the company pledges, though many will require the additional hardware provided in the starter kit or monthly deliveries.

More information on Piper Make and the subscription service is available on the Piper website.

Gareth Halfacree
Freelance journalist, technical author, hacker, tinkerer, erstwhile sysadmin. For hire: freelance@halfacree.co.uk.
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