If your problem is loading into the Arduino there are a number of things to try.
1: Using the Raspberry Pi with a screen to do everything makes a lot of sense, but there are two possible pitfalls:
In the instructions for loading the code there is:
- Requirements: Requires version 1.6.2 or higher of the Ardunio IDE.
(Note the Ubuntu/Debian package version 2:1.0.5, is version 1.0.5 and hence will not work!)
Check the IDE version you have on the Pi and try with the IDE on a normal computer.
I have also found that a Pi 3B+ does struggle to run the microscope and show the desktop.
2: In general with a new Arduino board I always check that I can load up and modify the basic blink sketch. This is available in the examples-basic in the Arduino IDE. Once I can get that loaded and check that it is modified by loading with a couple of different blink rates then I know that I have a board that basically works and I am communicating with it correctly. Problems in the Arduino IDE that could stop communication and loading to a board are selecting the wrong board type or selecting the wrong boot loader. Nano clones can have a couple of different versions of the ATMega chip or have different bootloaders. For example the ones I used most recently needed the old bootloader selected.
However even if you can load blink there is the issue above about parts of the Sangaboard code needing a recent version of the Arduino IDE in order to load properly.