Unlock Raspberry Pi Potential: Integrate with Gravity Sensor Kit!

This article offers a comprehensive guide on setting up Raspberry Pi, covering hardware requirements, system installation, and initial boot process, making it accessible for beginners.

What is Raspberry Pi?

The Raspberry Pi is a low cost, credit-card sized computer that plugs into a computer monitor or TV, and uses a standard keyboard and mouse. It is a capable little device that enables people of all ages to explore computing, and to learn how to program in languages like Scratch and Python. It’s capable of doing everything you’d expect a desktop computer to do, from browsing the internet and playing high-definition video, to making spreadsheets, word-processing, and playing games. With the release of Windows 10 IoT, We will also be able to use the Raspberry Pi to run Windows.

Raspberry Pi was developed by the Raspberry Pi Foundation, a UK charity, with Eben·Upton in Cambridge University as the project leader. In March 2012, he officially released the world’s smallest desktop computer, also known as a card computer, which is only the size of a credit card but has all the basic functions of a computer. This is the Raspberry Pi computer board. The foundation aims to improve the education of computer science and related subjects in schools to make computers interesting. And it expects that this computer will continue to be developed and applied to more fields, whether in developing or developed countries. In 2006, the early concept of Raspberry Pi was based on Atmel's ATmega644 microcontroller. The first batch of 10,000 sets of Raspberry Pi boards were made by manufacturers in Taiwan and mainland China.

It is an ARM-based microcomputer motherboard with SD/MicroSD card as the memory hard disk. There are 1/2/4 USB ports and a 10/100 Ethernet port around the card motherboard (A type has no network port), which can be connected to a Keyboard, mouse, and network cable, as well as a TV output interface for video analog signals and an HDMI high-definition video output interface. The above components are all integrated on a motherboard that is only slightly larger than a credit card. It has all the basic functions of a PC. But the Raspberry Pi B model only provides a computer board without memory, power supply, keyboard, case or connection.

Differences between Raspberry Pi models

Selection guide

Raspberry Pi Peripherals

Summary

As everyone has a preliminary understanding of Raspberry Pi, now we are going to learn how to use the 37 PCs Sensor kit on Raspberry Pi 4B.

Preparation

Hardware

Install Raspberry Pi System

It is recommended to use a SanDisk Class10 SD card with memory storage of 8G and above. The SD card purchased online may already have image burned inside. However, as system is constantly updating and there are so many systems for Raspberry Pi now (you can't play them all), so burning OS by yourself is a necessary skill. Now we will take the Raspbian system as an example.

Download the Latest Disc Image

Enter Raspberry Pi official web: http://www.raspberrypi.org/downloads/
Find the latest Imager to download.

It is recommended to download Raspberry Pi OS (32-bit) with desktop and recommended software.

Burn to write raspbian image to SD Card on Windows

Download Win32DiskImager: Baidu Cloud Link（https://pan.baidu.com/s/1i3oY1Hr）

It will be installed like this:

Insert your SD card and remember the drive letter
Open the burning software above

Select the disc images downloaded before and the corresponding drive letter. Be careful not to get it wrong. And then you can go ahead and “WRITE”

If it can't operate properly, format the SD card and try again
After doing this, remove the SD card from your computer and insert it into the Raspberry Pi, then it’s ready to use now.

First Time Booting Up

Connect the Raspberry Pi to the screen as shown in the picture below

Insert the Raspberry Pi expansion board and the burned SD card into the Raspberry Pi. Then power it on.
Press ‘Next’ to setup your Raspberry Pi

Select your location and press ‘Next’.

Set password (If not set, ‘raspberry’ will be default password). Then press ‘Next’.

Select this according to your needs and press ‘Next’ to save your setting.

Select your WIFI network and press ‘Next’ to enter your password, or press ‘Skip’ to skip this step.

Press ‘Skip’ or ‘Next’ according to your needs.

Press ‘Restart’ to restart your Raspberry Pi

Enable interfaces of Raspberry Pi such as I2C, SPI, GPIO, serial port, etc. Press ‘OK’ to restart it (Ignore if they are already enabled).

Install Python dependency libraries and git, and you need to get your Raspberry Pi connect to internet for this step(skip if installed). In the terminal, type the following commands and press ‘Enter’

sudo apt-get install build-essential python-dev python-smbus git

Update WiringPi Library. In the terminal, type the following instructions in order and press ‘Enter’

cd /tmp

wget https://project-downloads.drogon.net/wiringpi-latest.deb //Down load wiringpi library

sudo dpkg -i wiringpi-latest.deb //Install wiringpi Library

gpio readall //Read GPIO code number

All preparations are completed now.

Get Started with Raspberry Pi