I have a little more time on my hands these days and while looking for something (I forget what), I came across the PYNQ-Z2 board that I had won in a Hackster competition. It was kind of a bucket raffle where you earned points and could "bid" on the prize of your choosing. The PYNQ-Z2 happened to come with a small pink unicorn and some other pink stuff. I have one granddaughter and (at the time) she loved unicorns. Decision made. Anyway...
Part of this adventure is to try to catch up to the times. It may not be new technology, but there's a benefit to walking the path. And... I could use some programming refreshing. There are two PYNQ workshops. Finding the materials for the first one took a bit more digging. The Resources block that comes along with the webinar recordings can provide you the lab manual. Or, you could use the link below (found in the lab manual). It also contains the Notebooks and files you will need. You will also want to use the Search feature here on the community. There is good stuff buried in some of the older posts.
2020 PYNQ Workshop Manuals and Files: https://github.com/ATaylorCEngFIET/Element14_PYNQ/tree/master
I am using PYNQ-Z2 image v3.1.1, downloaded from https://www.pynq.io/boards.html. I'm sure that I'll have issues finding the right version of Vivado and Vitas to use. I'll cross that bridge when it is time.
One thing to note: It takes a long time for the board to boot. It feels like 30 seconds or so. I haven't timed it, but the first time trying to use pynq:9090, I thought it failed and fired up Putty to make sure that I was communicating. When the four lights next to the four buttons illuminate, then you can use pynq:9090 to interact with the board.
Programming seems pretty direct. This is my first try at Jupyter Notebooks, so that is interesting. Right now, it looks like HTML with a few bits of code to me, but I'm getting to like it. As for playing with the notebook to get it to do other things... I had already stumbled across the code snippets while looking for other stuff. That made it easier.
*I'm also curious to see if I still get the badge. 