u/Dark_Greee

I'm a sophomore in college for Computer Science and I have gotten into embedded systems heavily. I am reaching the point in my projects where I don't understand why electricity does certain thinks, as I lack the basics of electrical engineering.

Is there some certification with a course that I can buy and study for over the summer to learn electrical engineering / computer engineering? I ask for a certification because I plan on staying with Computer Science because I want to focus on the firmware side of things, and still want something I can put on my resume to show I know electrical / computer engineering. Plus I just want to learn it.

I am interested in firmware development and embedded in general and trying to figure out a learning path for myself. I see RTOS mentioned a lot, should I make learning it a priority? I've already done some simple projects like blinking an LED to UART input trnaslated into morse code without RTOS.

How common is it in a professional job? Should I learn mostly RTOS or 50/50 bare metal / RTOS?

I am learning embedded C on a Raspberry Pi Pico W and want to try and make my own SDK/Driver as a learning project. I've read through the datasheet and still confused about where to start. I've built some basic UART and Blinky LED projects, and just want to go even lower.

TLDR: How do I get started on coding with no SDK, just C and registers and raw bare metal?

I've built some example projects using the SDK, but I want to write my own driver.

Does anyone know where I can learn how to start developing for the Pico W without using the SDK? I've looked over the data sheet for it and the RP2040, but still don't know where to start.