PIPER LAUNCHES THE FIRST DRAG-AND-DROP CODING PLATFORM TO PROTOTYPE TECHNOLOGY WITH THE NEW RASPBERRY PI PICO MICROCONTROLLER—AVAILABLE IN YOUR BROWSER AND BUILT FOR CHROMEBOOKS, MACS, AND PCS.
Piper Make Empowers Hands-On Prototyping Using the New Raspberry Pi Pico and New Technology Shipped Every Month to Monthly Makers Club Members.
SAN FRANCISCO, CA — March 14, 2021 —
Piper, an award-winning STEAM education company announced today the launch of
Piper Make, the first drag-and-drop coding platform for the new
Raspberry Pi Pico. The interface, compatible with Chromebooks and other computers, is free of charge and enables users to interact and build with their Raspberry Pi Pico in a hands-on way. With new project tutorials released every month to accompany the technology shipped with the Monthly Makers Club, the platform is built to let anyone learn the basics of hardware and coding. With visualizations of the microcontroller, translations of block code to text-based MicroPython, and more, Piper Make empowers users to start inventing with technology.
Starting Pi Day (3.14.21), members of the Piper Monthly Makers Club will receive their starter kits—which includes the Raspberry Pi Pico, an 830-point breadboard, LEDs, resistors, and wires—to use with new pieces of hardware (e.g. sensors, buttons, etc.) shipped in future months. At that time, tutorials will also be launching on our free platform—Piper Make. Starter kits are available as a one-time $30 purchase, as is membership to the Monthly Makers Club for $20/month.
“Our mission at Piper has always been to make the process of innovating with technology more accessible,” said Shree Bose, cofounder of Piper. “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.”
Piper Monthly Makers Club Overview: New subscribers receive the starter kit (Raspberry Pi Pico, LEDs, resistors, switches and wires) which they can seamlessly use with the projects on the Piper Make platform. New hardware will then be shipped every month, with corresponding tutorials and projects released on Piper Make. The key features include:
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Raspberry Pi Pico: The powerful microcontroller from the Raspberry Pi Foundation is the newest on the market. Versatile and tiny, this board uses the new RP2040 microcontroller chip and features a powerful ARM M0 dual-core processor with programmable GPIO pins that make the possible applications endless. The Piper Monthly Makers Club becomes a unique opportunity not only to get familiar with this powerful piece of hardware, but also to explore the endless possibilities for building and powering technology.
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Piper Make Coding Interface: Piper Make is the first drag-and-drop coding platform for the Raspberry Pi Pico. As a reference hub for current and future projects and innovations, it delivers all the information for hardware inputs, outputs, components and sensors to be shipped with the Monthly Makers Club, and how to reuse them for other projects and creations. Access a reference library of user-friendly descriptions for use in new projects and creations, and seamlessly extend the Piper experience. In addition, users can view the Python version of Google Blockly code in real-time while coding and understand the connection between text-based and visual programming.
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Piper Monthly Makers Club Technology Subscription: With the Monthly Makers Club, new hardware is shipped to subscribers every month, to correspond with newly released projects on Piper Make. In addition, combinations of technologies from different months, programmed using the Piper Make interface can yield new gadgets and technologies that will be shareable using the Piper Make coding interface.
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Chromebook/Classroom Compatibility: The Piper Make coding interface is accessible from your browser, allowing users to plug in their Pico and start prototyping immediately. Piper Make is ideally suited for collaboration and remote learning as well—visible during screen-sharing and with “Build Your Own Project” features to allow students to code projects and share with classmates and teachers.
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Starter Bundles: The starter kits including the Pico, 830-point breadboard, LEDs, resistors, switches and wires are compatible with other off-the-shelf hardware, and can be purchased for a one-time payment of $30. An extended starter kit including the base starter kit and three sensors—the color sensor, the ultrasonic range finder, and the temperature sensor—can also be purchased for a one-time payment of $75. Both these kits include the hardware used in the tutorials and projects available or our open coding platform, Piper Make.
PRICING AND AVAILABILITY:
ABOUT PIPER:
Founded in 2014,
Piper, Inc. is an award-winning edtech start-up providing best in class STEAM education opportunities. From its headquarters in San Francisco, CA, Piper creates compelling STEAM learning experiences for individual learners and for schools. Through student-centered, hands-on STEAM education experiences that reflect the most current pedagogy, Piper supports educators, students and classrooms. Piper builds confidence in STEAM through project-based learning, spreads digital fluency to students and learners of all backgrounds and inspires the inventors of tomorrow.
PRESS CONTACT:
Shree Bose
Co-founder, Piper Inc.
shree at playpiper dot com
TO LEARN MORE ABOUT PIPER:
