This week’s Python-on-microcontrollers roundup is loaded — a fresh CircuitPython release, a massive open-source gift for PCB designers, a slick simulator for Raspberry Pi PIO, and a fresh batch of boards worth bookmarking. Here’s what caught our eye.
CircuitPython 10.2.1 (and 10.3.0-alpha.2) Ship
CircuitPython 10.2.1 is out, mainly squashing crashes on boards with integral displays and improving display quality on the MagTag 2025. The 10.3.0-alpha.2 preview goes further: a new CIRCUITPY_SDCARD_USB setting controls whether a mounted SD card shows up over USB, settings.toml now understands float values, USB MSC drives report as removable media, and the ESP-IDF jumps to v6.0.1. STM users also get audio.AudioOut via DAC, and SAMx5x audio mixer regressions are patched.
CERN Hands KiCad 17,000 Components — Free
CERN has open-sourced its entire in-house KiCad component library: more than 17,000 schematic symbols and PCB footprints, maintained by their Design Office. If you’ve ever lost an evening drawing your own footprint for an obscure connector, this is the news of the week. Complementing it, a small Python web tool called JLC2KiCad converts JLCPCB part data into KiCad format, so prototyping with affordable assembly houses gets even easier.
A PIO Simulator for the RP2040 & RP2350
PIO (Programmable I/O) is one of the most powerful — and trickiest — features of the Raspberry Pi RP2040 and RP2350. A developer going by ice458 on GitHub has built a browser-based PIO simulator that visualises waveforms, pin states, and registers as your program runs. Debugging custom protocols just got a lot less painful.
Fresh Hardware: Pi Slate, OpenMV AE3, M5Stack PaperColor
Three new boards landed worth a look. The Pi Slate is a Raspberry Pi 5 handheld cyberdeck with a 5-inch 720p touchscreen, backlit RGB keyboard, and a 10,000 mAh battery — built for portable Linux and security work. The OpenMV AE3 is a low-power machine-vision board you program in MicroPython. And the M5Stack PaperColor packs an ESP32-S3R8, 16 MB flash, 8 MB PSRAM, and a 4-inch full-colour Spectra 6 e-paper display.
Build It Yourself
Want to try the week’s projects? The Altoids Tin Mini-Cyberdeck uses a Raspberry Pi Zero W. The MatrixPortal Concierge runs on an Adafruit Matrix Portal S3 driving a 64×32 RGB LED matrix. The real-time radiation monitor is built around an ESP32 running MicroPython. And to play with the new PIO simulator, all you need is any Raspberry Pi Pico (RP2040) or Pico 2 (RP2350).
Frequently Asked Questions
What’s new in CircuitPython 10.2.1?
It’s a bugfix release that resolves crashes on boards with integral displays and improves display quality on the MagTag 2025. The companion 10.3.0-alpha.2 adds settings.toml float support, a CIRCUITPY_SDCARD_USB option, removable-media USB reporting, ESP-IDF v6.0.1, and STM DAC audio output.
Why does CERN’s open KiCad library matter for hobbyists?
It drops over 17,000 ready-made schematic symbols and PCB footprints into KiCad for free, removing one of the most time-consuming parts of designing your own board. Combined with the JLC2KiCad web tool, hobbyists can prototype faster and order assembled PCBs with fewer custom parts to draw.
What will I learn if I build the projects from this roundup?
A lot of practical skills: flashing the latest CircuitPython and reading release notes, designing PCBs in KiCad with real-world component libraries, writing and debugging RP2040 PIO state machines, working with e-paper displays on the ESP32-S3, and integrating sensors with MicroPython for IoT applications like a radiation monitor.
