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By Ash Hill published 12 May 22

Introducing Solder Party’s latest party for your pocket.

While it’s hard to get ahold of a Raspberry Pi, the RP2040 microprocessor seems to be readily available for your micro project needs. There's an interesting new RP2040-powered keyboard and trackpad device created by the team over at Solder Party known as the BB Q20.

If you haven’t heard of Solder Party before, you’re missing out. This microelectronics PCB development team is based out of Malmö, Sweden. It created a variety of open source microelectronics projects over the years and this new keyboard is the latest in its line of work.

The BB Q20 pocket-sized keyboard is available for both purchase and as an open source asset users can download and modify. It’s more than just a PCB, providing users with a functional keyboard with letter-faced buttons installed inside a clear plastic case made using injection molding.

It has a USB Type-C port that allows the device to function as an HID, receive power and opens the opportunity for custom programming. The trackpad also works as an HID mouse. It has a built in microphone as well as 16MB of SPI flash. Users can take advantage of both its Quicc (Stemma QT) connector as well as its PMOD connector which uses I2C.

According to Solder Party, the firmware must be configured using the USB interface. The new BB Q20 is compatible with previous libraries used to program its predecessor, the the BB Q10. Both modules support this Arduino library as well as this CircuitPython library that can be found over at GitHub.

If you want to get a closer look at this new, pocket-sized RP2040-based keyboard and trackpad combo, check out the official BB Q20 project page on the official Solder Party website for more details. You can find the BB Q20 available for purchase over at Tindie for a starting price of $30 USD (€28.93). 

Ash Hill is a Freelance News and Features Writer at Tom's Hardware US. She manages the Pi projects of the month and much of our daily Raspberry Pi reporting.

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