There has been a major shift in electronics and computer accessibility driven by the introduction of the Raspberry Pi microcomputer and its variants. With a completely different price point along with a significantly expanded support community, the Raspberry Pi has been an unprecedented success in bringing inexpensive computing to a wide audience. The Raspberry Pi Zero continues with that important approach, providing unprecedented computer power at an even lower price point.

The Raspberry Pi Zero is particularly useful as it can be paired with inexpensive hardware and open-source software to do a wide range of different Do-It-Yourself projects. You'll learn about many of these in this book. You'll learn how to control DC motors, how to control servos, how to hook up a microphone for speech recognition, and even how to connect a webcam to view and interpret the outside world.

The Raspberry Pi Zero can do amazing things, but first you'll need to understand how to access all of this capability. In this chapter, you'll learn how to: