MicroPython workshop – 2

This page gives information on Sensemakers-Amsterdam’s MicroPython Continuation Workshop, to be given by Gijs Mos on Wednesday, February 12t at the OBA. The workshop will be given in English. You can reserve your seat on meetup.com. The old workshop info can be found here.

As this is a continuation workshop there are some prerequisites:

  • You should have some ESP-8266 (or ESP-32) boards, running MicroPython. The examples will all be based on 4M-Flash ESP8266.
  • You should have a notebook with a method to transfer (Python etc) files to and from the file system on your board. And a method to connect to the REPL on the board. The examples will use rshell.
  • You should have an editor to edit the MicroPython source files on your notebook. The examples will use vs-code with Python plug-ins (syntax highlighting, auto pep8 formatting, linting).
  • I want to demo how to generate a new MicroPython interpreter from source and how to add pre-compiled python modules to that interpreter. This is only supported on Linux. If you are on a PC, Ubuntu on WSL-1 will also work. Also your machine should not be too slow. So this part may be a demo only.

What we will do on the workshop is partly open. So contact Gijs with your suggestions. Already on the list are:

  • Setting up and using WiFi in AP and Station mode.
  • Sending MQTT based messages.
  • Receiving MQTT based messages.
  • Permanently add pre-compiled Python modules to the interpreter.
  • Using I2C.
  • Reding a DS18B20.

Regarding the prerequisites. Last workshop lots of time was spent just getting things working. This was quite hard. There are many boards on the market with an ESP 8266. Some of this with a unique pin pumbering scheme. There are many types USB-uart chips on such board. Notebooks run different OS-es. And there are many IDE’s supporting MicroPython (editting, file transfer, repl access, …), each differently.

There won’t be enough time to get everything working. So please have a careful look at the prerequisites and make sure they are satisfied. That is, if you want to participate in the experiments. If you have problems, consider to bring board, notebook, cables with you to our next lab evening on february, 5th, 2020 in the OBA.