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Picopad is a gateway to the world of
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Picopad - an open-source gaming console

Picopad is an open-source gaming console for both learning to program and just plain playing. It comes in two flavors – the Picopad Wifi soldering kit, where you build your own console and pick up soldering and electronics along the way, or the fully-assembled Picopad Pro with a larger display and a 3.5mm headphone jack. Both variants support programming in C, CircuitPython and MicroPython and share the same game engine – the same titles run on both. With external cards for various educational expansions, Picopad is also a perfect tool for developing STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics) skills.

Soldering kit

Picopad Wifi

Build your own console – the kit ships with every part for the classic soldering experience.

  • 2.0″ IPS display (240×320)
  • 500 mAh Li-ion battery + TP4056 charger
  • Pico W (RP2040, WiFi 802.11n + BT 5.2)
  • 8 game buttons, power switch, reset, BOOTSEL
  • microSD slot and built-in speaker
  • 12-pin external connector (UART, I2C, ADC)
Picopad Wifi in the shop →
Pre-assembled

Picopad Pro NEW

Higher specs, no soldering – unbox and play.

  • 2.8″ IPS display (240×320) – larger screen
  • 600 mAh Li-ion battery + TP4056 charger
  • Pico W (RP2040, WiFi 802.11n + BT 5.2)
  • Improved buttons and dedicated mute switch
  • 3.5mm headphone jack and upgraded amplifier
  • PICOBUS connector for expansion cards
  • I2C connector (Stemma/Qwiic compatible)
Picopad Pro in the shop →

Main features

Pico W (RP2040)

Both models are built around the Raspberry Pi Pico W: an RP2040 chip (dual Cortex-M0+) plus integrated 2.4 GHz WiFi 802.11n with WPA3 security and Bluetooth 5.2 (LE and Classic).

IPS display

Color IPS display at 240×320 pixels with the ST7789 driver. Picopad Wifi has a 2.0″ panel; Picopad Pro offers a roomier 2.8″.

Audio & visuals

A user-controllable LED and built-in speaker for game audio and music. Picopad Pro additionally adds a 3.5mm headphone jack, an improved amplifier and a hardware mute switch.

MicroSD slot

A microSD slot lets you launch programs straight from the card – just save the app as a standard UF2 file and Picopad’s custom bootloader will run it. Great for game libraries and saving scores or logs.

Battery & charging

Li-ion battery with built-in TP4056 charger – safe and convenient over USB. Picopad Wifi packs a 500 mAh cell; Picopad Pro stretches battery life with 600 mAh.

Controls

8 game buttons (D-pad + A/B/X/Y), power switch, reset and BOOTSEL. Picopad Pro upgrades the button feel and adds a dedicated mute switch for the speaker.

External connector

12-pin connector with raw battery, 3.3 V, GND, UART, two I2C channels and three analog inputs / six GPIO. Picopad Pro additionally exposes the PICOBUS expansion connector and a separate Stemma/Qwiic-compatible I2C header.

On-device development

Several ways to program: a custom C SDK with a bootloader for running UF2 from microSD, plus MicroPython and CircuitPython. Ready-to-go examples and libraries live in the GitHub repo.

Open source

Every part of Picopad – game sources, schematics, gerbers, bootloader – is open source. The community drives the project forward, and you can fork, tweak and extend whatever you like.