TinyGo Starter Kit with XIAO: A New Way to Build with Go
Earlier this year, TinyGo v0.41 brought native wireless support to Seeed Studio XIAO ESP32-C3 and XIAO ESP32-S3, making it possible to write Wi-Fi-enabled applications in Go and flash them directly to the boards. (Read the full story) However, having board support is one thing. Knowing what to build next is another.
Today, we’re excited to introduce the TinyGo Starter Kit with Seeed Studio XIAO — an official TinyGo starter kit built around the XIAO ESP32-C3, a carefully selected set of 11 Grove modules, alongside a Grove Base for XIAO, and a complete set of tutorials for learning embedded Go by actually building things. Priced at $53.54, this is the first joint-effort kit that we curated with the team at TinyGo, with the shared vision to make building hardware more accessible for Go developers.
What’s In the Box
The idea behind the kit is simple: give Go developers enough hardware to explore embedded development without making the hardware itself the barrier.
The Controller: XIAO ESP32-C3
The kit comes with a pre-soldered XIAO ESP32-C3, a compact RISC-V development board with 2.4 GHz Wi-Fi and BLE. It provides the computing and connectivity for the projects you’ll build throughout the tutorials.
And because TinyGo also supports XIAO ESP32-S3, XIAO nRF52840, XIAO RP2040, XIAO SAMD21, and XIAO RP2350, you can also swap your XIAO at any point without changing your setup.
| XIAO Board | TinyGo v0.41 Support |
|---|---|
| XIAO ESP32C3 | ✅ Full Wi‑Fi |
| XIAO ESP32S3 | ✅ Full Wi‑Fi |
| XIAO RP2040 | ✅ Supported |
| XIAO nRF52840 (XIAO BLE) | ✅ Supported |
| XIAO SAMD21 | ✅ Supported |
| XIAO RP2350 | ✅ Supported |
Grove Base for XIAO
The Grove Base for XIAO provides the bridge between the XIAO and the Grove modules. Instead of dealing with jumper wires and breadboards, you can connect modules through standardized Grove connectors and concentrate on the code and the behavior of your project.
11 Grove Modules
The kit gives you a broad set of inputs and outputs to experiment with:
- Inputs: button, touch, rotary angle, light, sound, temperature, vibration, and acceleration.
- Outputs: buzzer, RGB LEDs, and OLED display.
You’ll have things that sense, things that respond, and things that show you what your program is doing.
Comprehensive Tutorials by TinyGo
The kit comes with a dedicated TinyGo tutorial series written by Patricio Whittingslow, a core member of the TinyGo team. The code in the docs is auto-generated from the runnable examples, so what you read is exactly what you flash.
The learning path starts with toolchain setup, flashing the XIAO ESP32-C3, and working with simple inputs such as button and touch sensor, and then moving into analog sensors including temperature, light, and rotary angle.
From there, you can begin combining inputs and outputs with the sound sensor, buzzer, vibration sensor, accelerometer, and RGB LED Stick. The OLED display adds another layer, allowing you to turn sensor readings into a simple on-device interface. By gradually introducing these components, the tutorials show not only how each module works, but also how they can work together as part of a complete application.
From GopherCon to Your Desk
We’ve already seen what the combination of TinyGo and XIAO can look like in the hands of the TinyGo community. At this year’s GopherCon Europe, Ron Evans from the TinyGo team ran a hands-on hardware hack session, giving Gophers the chance to experiment with XIAO ESP32-C3 and a range of connected hardware.
Daniel “conejo” Esteban brought a fully functional 15× scale XIAO ESP32-C3 to the event. It was a playful take on the tiny board, but also a great example of the kind of experimentation that happens when software developers get their hands on hardware.
Now, you can have that experience on your own desk.
The TinyGo Starter Kit with XIAO brings you everything you need to start experimenting with embedded Go and build something of your own. It could be a useful IoT device, a weird weekend experiment, an interactive gadget, or something completely out of the box. Ready?
End Note
Hey community, we’re curating a monthly newsletter centering around the beloved Seeed Studio XIAO. If you want to stay up-to-date with:
🤖️ Cool Projects from the Community to get inspiration and tutorials
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