Embedded Journey Kit - Zero to Hero: MicroPython examples

MicroPython example scripts for the Embedded Journey Kit - Zero to Hero. Every example in this repository is written to be read as much as run: each one explains what every new function does and why the circuit behaves the way it does, so you can change things and understand what happened.

Start from zero, become a hero

NULA means zero in Croatian. This kit is your path from absolute beginner to capable maker. Built around the NULA Mini ESP32-C6, a breadboard-ready programmable board with Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth 5.3, it supports both MicroPython and Arduino. You'll quickly move from blinking your first LED to building connected IoT devices without feeling lost or overwhelmed.

The kit bridges two worlds: plug-and-play Qwiic modules (no soldering required) and classic breadboard components for hands-on circuit building.

• Qwiic ecosystem: 16x2 LCD, ultrasonic distance sensor, and SHTC3 temperature/humidity sensor connect easily to the NULA Mini
• Classic components: Mini breadboard, LEDs, photoresistors, buzzer, shift register (74HC595), resistors, and jumper wires for fundamental experimentation

You get step-by-step documentation and tutorials for both MicroPython and Arduino, plus guided projects that build practical skills:

• Blinking LEDs and button interactions
• Light sensing and LCD text displays
• Distance measurement and Wi-Fi communication
• Smart weather station, mini piano, parking sensor
• Morse code transmitter, alarm clock, traffic light simulator
• And more

Designed for STEM classrooms, workshops, and self-learners, this kit helps you move from theory to creating something that works. Our tutorials get you started quickly while teaching you why circuits work, not just how to copy them.

Ready to start from zero?

Documentation and tutorials are coming soon. Until then, every script in this repository is heavily commented and can be followed on its own. The <link placeholder> markers in the script headers are where the tutorial links will go.

What's in the kit

Component	Quantity	Notes
NULA Mini ESP32-C6	1	With male headers, breadboard ready
LCD Display 16x2	1	Qwiic
Distance Sensor HC-SR04	1	Qwiic
Temperature and Humidity Sensor SHTC3	1	Qwiic
Qwiic cable, 10 cm	5
Mini breadboard	1
Jumper wire set for breadboard	1
10 mm colorful LED diode	13	12 single-colour LEDs and 1 RGB LED
10k photoresistor	3
Buzzer	1	Passive
Push button	5	4 used at once, in 7.2 Mini piano
Shift register IC	1	74HC595
10k THT resistor	15	Voltage divider for the photoresistors, plus spares
330 Ohm resistor	25	One in series with every LED, to limit the current

Getting started

1. Put MicroPython on the board

The NULA Mini is an ESP32-C6 board, so it runs the official ESP32_GENERIC_C6 build of MicroPython. Download the latest .bin from micropython.org/download/ESP32_GENERIC_C6. ESP32-C6 support arrived in MicroPython 1.24, so use that version or newer.

The easiest way is through Thonny: open Tools -> Options -> Interpreter, pick MicroPython (ESP32), then click Install or update MicroPython and let it do the download and flashing for you.

If you prefer the command line:

pip install esptool
python -m esptool --chip esp32c6 --port /dev/ttyACM0 erase_flash
python -m esptool --chip esp32c6 --port /dev/ttyACM0 --baud 460800 write_flash 0 ESP32_GENERIC_C6-<version>.bin

On Windows the port looks like COM5, and on macOS like /dev/cu.usbmodem*.

2. Put the drivers on the board

The three Qwiic modules are driven by the Soldered drivers in the lib folder of this repository. MicroPython looks for imported modules in a folder called lib on the board itself, so they have to be on the board before those examples will run.

The easy way, with mip. MicroPython's own package installer can fetch them straight from this repository, so there is nothing to download by hand:

pip install mpremote
mpremote mip install github:SolderedElectronics/Soldered-NULA-Beginner-kit-MicroPython-project-examples/lib

That puts all four drivers into /lib on the board, which is exactly where the examples expect them.

To install the examples as well, leave the /lib off the end and mip will fetch the drivers together with all 22 example scripts, which land in /lib/Examples grouped by section:

mpremote mip install github:SolderedElectronics/Soldered-NULA-Beginner-kit-MicroPython-project-examples

By hand instead. In Thonny, open the lib folder in the Files pane, right-click it and choose Upload to /. Or copy it with mpremote directly:

mpremote connect auto fs cp -r lib :

Nothing else needs installing. The urequests and ntptime modules used by the Wi-Fi examples are already built into the standard ESP32 firmware.

3. Run an example

Open any .py file in Thonny and press Run. Start at 1.1_Hello_World and work down in order: the examples build on each other, and the later ones point back at the earlier ones instead of explaining the same thing twice.

From the command line:

mpremote connect auto run 1_Basic_Skills/1.1_Hello_World/1.1_Hello_World.py

To make an example start on its own every time the board powers up, copy it onto the board as main.py:

mpremote connect auto fs cp 1_Basic_Skills/1.2_LED_blinking/1.2_LED_blinking.py :main.py

The examples

There are 22 examples across seven sections. Sections 1 to 6 each teach one new thing at a time. Section 7 combines what you have learned into finished projects.

1. Basic skills

Example	What you learn	Hardware
1.1 Hello World	print(), talking to the console	Board only
1.2 LED blinking	Pin(), Pin.OUT, value(), time.sleep()	LED, 330 Ohm resistor

2. Inputs and outputs

Example	What you learn	Hardware
2.1 Button counter	Pin.IN, Pin.PULL_UP, reading a button, why a raw reading is noisy	Button
2.2 Button debounce	ticks_ms(), ticks_diff(), debouncing, toggling a state	Button, LED, 330 Ohm resistor
2.3 Photoresistor analog read	ADC(), read(), attenuation, the 12-bit range	Photoresistor, 10k resistor
2.4 Buzzer beep	PWM(), freq(), duty_u16(), lists, for loops	Buzzer

3. Ultrasonic distance sensor

Example	What you learn	Hardware
3.1 Measuring distance	Using a driver over Qwiic, begin() then takeMeasure()	Ultrasonic sensor, Qwiic cable
3.2 Distance fade LED	Writing your own map function, duty_u16(), clamping a value	Ultrasonic sensor, LED, 330 Ohm resistor

4. LCD display

Example	What you learn	Hardware
4.1 Print message	begin(), backlight(), setCursor(), print(), rows and columns	16x2 LCD
4.2 Auto scroll text	scrollDisplayLeft(), animating text with a pause	16x2 LCD

5. Temperature sensor SHTC3

Example	What you learn	Hardware
5.1 Reading temperature and humidity	I2C() over Qwiic, sample() before reading, timing with ticks_ms()	SHTC3 sensor

6. Wi-Fi

Example	What you learn	Hardware
6.1 Connecting and getting data	network.WLAN(), isconnected(), urequests.get()	Board only
6.2 Wi-Fi LED control	Building a server from a socket, routing, a little HTML and JavaScript	LED, 330 Ohm resistor
6.3 Sending data	urequests.post(), headers, sending your own data to a server	Board only

Sections 6.1, 6.3 and the Wi-Fi projects need your network name and password filled in at the top of the script. The board connects to 2.4 GHz networks.

7. Projects

Project	What it combines	Hardware
7.1 Smart weather station	SHTC3 + LCD + Wi-Fi, sending readings to a webhook	SHTC3, LCD
7.2 Mini piano	Four buttons mapped to note frequencies	4 buttons, buzzer
7.3 Parking sensor	Distance driving beep rate, non-blocking beeping	Ultrasonic sensor, buzzer, LED, 330 Ohm resistor
7.4 RGB LED controller	One analog input driving three PWM outputs, colour mixing	Photoresistor, RGB LED, 10k resistor, 3x 330 Ohm resistor
7.5 Shift register	Writing your own shift_out(), latching, binary counting, 8 outputs from 3 pins	74HC595, 4 LEDs, 4x 330 Ohm resistor
7.6 Morse code transmitter	input(), dictionaries as lookup tables, your own functions	LED, 330 Ohm resistor
7.7 Alarm clock	ntptime over Wi-Fi, LCD, two debounced buttons, buzzer	LCD, 2 buttons, buzzer
7.8 LED traffic light	Finite state machines, timed sequences without pausing	3 LEDs, 3x 330 Ohm resistor

Pins used by each example

Every example is standalone and picks whichever pins suit it, so you will rewire between them. Use this table as a quick reference. All numbers are the IO numbers printed on the board.

Example	IO2	IO3	IO4	IO5	IO18	IO19
1.2 LED blinking			LED
2.1 Button counter						Button
2.2 Button debounce			LED			Button
2.3 Photoresistor				Photoresistor
2.4 Buzzer beep				Buzzer
3.1 Measuring distance
3.2 Distance fade LED	LED
6.2 Wi-Fi LED control			LED
7.2 Mini piano	Button 1	Button 2	Button 3	Button 4	Buzzer
7.3 Parking sensor	Buzzer			LED
7.4 RGB LED controller	Red	Green	Blue	Photoresistor
7.5 Shift register	Data	Latch	Clock
7.6 Morse code	LED
7.7 Alarm clock	Hour button	Minute button	Buzzer
7.8 Traffic light	Red	Orange	Green

The three Qwiic modules - the LCD, the ultrasonic distance sensor and the SHTC3 - do not appear in the table because they all share the same I2C bus, which on the NULA Mini is IO6 (SDA) and IO7 (SCL). Chain them together with the Qwiic cables and no pin configuration is needed, which is why example 3.1 claims no GPIO pins at all.

Buttons use the internal pull-up resistors of the board, switched on with Pin.PULL_UP. That means no resistor is needed on the breadboard: wire one side of the button to the pin and the other straight to GND. It also means the readings are the other way around from what you might expect, which is called active low: a pin reads 1 (high) while its button is released and 0 (low) while it is pressed.

Every LED needs its own 330 Ohm resistor in series with it, which limits the current through it. Without one the LED draws more current than either it or the pin is built for, and both can be damaged. The RGB LED counts as three LEDs here, so it takes three resistors, one per colour channel.

The photoresistor examples need a 10k resistor as well. A photoresistor changes its resistance with light but the board can only measure a voltage, and pairing it with a fixed resistor turns that changing resistance into a changing voltage. This arrangement is called a voltage divider.

The lib folder

Driver	Used by	Provides
lib/LCD.py	sections 4, 7.1, 7.7	LCD_I2C, the 16x2 Qwiic display
lib/SHTC3.py	sections 5, 7.1	SHTC3, the temperature and humidity sensor
lib/UltrasonicSensor.py	sections 3, 7.3	UltrasonicSensor, the distance sensor
lib/Qwiic.py	the drivers above	shared Qwiic helper the other drivers build on

Install them with mip, or copy the folder across by hand, as described in step 2 above. If an example stops with ImportError: no module named 'LCD', the drivers are not on the board, or they have landed somewhere other than /lib.

The same drivers are also published on their own, one module per sensor, in the Soldered MicroPython Modules repository, if you want just one of them for a project of your own.

Sections 1, 2 and 6 use nothing but the modules built into MicroPython, so they run on a freshly flashed board.

Arduino

The same 22 examples exist for the Arduino IDE, with matching numbering and matching pins, in the Arduino examples repository.

Need help?

• Product page: solde.red/333371
• Contact Soldered: soldered.com/contact
• Found a mistake in an example? Open an issue or a pull request, both are welcome.