Creating a new C/C++ Raspberry Pi Pico Project on Windows

Everything in this file comes from the Getting started with Raspberry Pi Pico for C/C++ development guide and Prof. Hunter Adams's project page. This file contains all of the same content, just organized into an enumerated list.

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• Creating a new project
• Building the project

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Creating a new project

• Get your Windows machine setup as described on this webpage.

• Open a Developer PowerShell for Visual Studio by navigating to Windows > Visual Studio 2019 > Developer PowerShell for VS 2019.

• Navigate to the directory in which you've installed pico-sdk.

• Create a new directory to house the test project alongside the pico-sdk directory by running the following:

  mkdir test
  cd test

  
  

• Copy the pico_sdk_import.cmake file from the external folder in your pico-sdk installation to your test project folder by running:

  cp ../pico-sdk/external/pico_sdk_import.cmake .

  
  
• Add a new file called test.c to the directory:

#include <stdio.h>
#include "pico/stdlib.h"
#include "hardware/gpio.h"

const uint LED_PIN = 25;

int main(){
    stdio_init_all();

    gpio_init(LED_PIN);
    gpio_set_dir(LED_PIN, GPIO_OUT);

    while(1){
        gpio_put(LED_PIN, 0);
        sleep_ms(250);
        gpio_put(LED_PIN, 1);
        puts("Hello world\n");
        sleep_ms(1000);
    }
}

• Add another file called CMakeLists.txt to the same directory:

cmake_minimum_required(VERSION 3.13)

include(pico_sdk_import.cmake)

project(test_project)

pico_sdk_init()

add_executable(test test.c)

pico_enable_stdio_usb(test 1)
pico_enable_stdio_uart(test 0)

pico_add_extra_outputs(test)

target_link_libraries(test pico_stdlib)

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Building the project

1. In the Developer PowerShell for Visual Studio, navigate to your test project repository.

2. Build by running the following:

    mkdir build
    cd build
    cmake -G "NMake Makefiles" ..
    nmake

3. Note: If, on the second build, you get errors thrown due to syntax in makefiles, run nmake clean before again running nmake.

4. Within the build directory, you will now find a hello_world directory. You will find directories for each of the other example projects too. These folders will contain the ELF, bin, and uf2 target files for each project. The uf2 target file can be dragged-and-dropped directly onto an RP2040 board attached to your PC via USB, as explained here.

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