TinyPICO Shields
We have an assortment of shields available for TinyPICO, and others in the community are designing shields and plugin boards too.
We will be keeping a list of all add-on boards and shields being made for the TinyPICO on the TinyPICO website.
All shields come with appropriate headers, but they are loose, so some soldering is required.
Play Shield
The Play Shield was designed to be a multi-purpose board that can be used for all sorts of activities like prototyping output, experimentation, and even games. It has lots of goodies on it, including:
- 128x64 white OLED
- 3-axis accelerometer
- Light sensor
- Mono amplifier
- Magnetic buzzer
- Blue LED
- Four input buttons + reset button
- LiPo connector plus power switch
- Headers for your TinyPICO to plug right into
If you power the Play Shield and TinyPICO from the shield JST connector, you can use the slide switch on the shield to power down everything. Make sure you have the switch turned on, though, if you want to charge the battery when the USB cable is plugged in.
Audio Shield
The Audio Shield brings the noise with:
- 1.5 W mono amplifier - which can be turned off to reduce power consumption
- Magnetic buzzer
- Trimmer potentiometer for gain control
- A switch to swap between on-board buzzer and external speakers that can be connected via provided header
Audio-in is connected to GPIO25, one of the two DACs (Digital to Analog Converter) and GPIO4 is connected to the amplifier (PAM8301) to allow you to shut down power to the amp to reduce current… ideal when running off battery.
RTC Shield
Accurate timing is important with electronics! The RTC Shield helps with that - featuring:
- MCP7940N RTC
- Ultra-low power consumption
- Goodies like calendar and alarms
- MFP (Multi Function Pin) - disconnectable via solder jumper if you need the pin for something else
- Battery holder for CR1025 3 V coin cell battery (not provided)
Note: Grove connectors can be used for more than just the I²C protocol, and though you can technically connect other protocol Grove devices to this shield, it’s not recommended or supported by us.
Proto Shield
Sometimes you just want to add a few small components to a project, and pulling out the perfboard seems like too much hard work. Yes, that’s how we feel too! Also, how often is it simply a button or two that you want to add?
The Proto Shield gives you the space to do just that, but with two buttons already on and wired up to GPIO14 and GPIO15 so you can skip that step. It also breaks out the reset button as a convenience.
3 Up Shield
The 3 Up shield is a simple and convenient way for you to connect a TinyPICO and two other shields together without needing to go to a breadboard or use stackable headers.
The shield also comes with a 3D-printed base for it to sit on, so that you won’t scratch your desk from the header socket solder joints!