Shield

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Welcome to one of my secret pages! This one is about some hardware hacking that I'm doing to create a MakeCode Arcade hardware shield. This shield is inspired by the various MakeCode Arcade BBC micro:bit shields that can be purchased but instead of being limited to just the BBC micro:bit, this shield will accept "cartridges" containing either an Adafruit M4 Feather Express or Raspberry Pi Pico.

Why am I doing this? Mostly just for fun as I'd like to make my own handheld device with pluggable cartridges as well as a mini arcade device with a nice joystick with pluggable cartridges. However, being able to make these devices (particularly the BBC micro:bit and Raspberry Pi Pico ones) would make this platform really useful in lots of more divers code club projects; particularly escape rooms.

If it all goes well, I plan for this shield to have additional buttons and potentially an additional processor (100% a Raspberry Pi Pico) and screen to give something a bit like a home made Nintendo DS. The second processor and screen idea would be based on the second processor running an interpreter a bit like on the Open Source Sprig hardware.

MakeCode Arcade

MakeCode Arcade is open source and can be found on GitHub.

Making "cartridges"

The simplest way to make pluggable cartridges is to just use the BBC micro:bit and 3D print a cover around it. The device already comes with a nice edge connector and is relatively cheap at around £15. The next obvious candidate is the Raspberry Pi Pico because it is super cheap. However, it would have to be soldered/manufactured into a cart which will push the price up meaning it might not be that much cheaper than an off the shelf BBC micro:bit.

Reference hardware

Microsofts documentation on creating your own board can be found here. In particular, reference designs are available on GitHub here.

Reference boards

Reference board can be found here.

• BOM
• Schematic

Reference shield

Reference shield can be found here.

• BOM
• Schematic

Feather M4 Express

This is probably the easiest starting point for anyone looking at what it takes to make your own board.

Head over the Adafruit article on how to build your own MakeCode Arcade device using a Feather M4 Express at MakeCode Arcade with SAMD51 M4.

You can buy a Adafruit Feather M4 Express from Pimoroni or the cheaper Adafruit ItsyBitsy M4 Express featuring, also from Pimoroni.

Feather M4 Express pinout

See here.

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BBC micro:bit

BBC micro:bit pinout

See here.

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Raspberry Pi Pico

People have been working on making a Raspberry Pi Pico based board for many years now and with mixed success. Most recently, two projects seem to have made great inroads.

Auston Stewart

This is the most promising of all the projects and is documented on Austons website here. I can across this on the Microsoft MakeCode forum here.

Auston has provided the project as a PDF Download. I've also made it available here.

Further down that article another person makes their own variation of Austons design which can be found here.

AqeeAqee

See was one of the first (more recent) articles I found on making a Pico powered MCA device. It was on the Microsoft MakeCode forum here.

Raspberry Pi Pico pinout

See here.

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