Aiko Engine MP (microPython)

Contents

• Overview
• Installation
• Resources

Pages

• Contributors
• Software license

Overview

The Aiko Engine MP provides ...

• Modular microPython based framework
• Abstractions for event handling, networking and timers
• Currently supported and tested on a range of ESP32 development boards
• Support for low-level LED panel graphics functions
• Support for multiple OLED screens
• Support LCA2017 IoTuz project
• Support LCA2018 LoliBot robotics project
• Support LCA2021 SwagBadge project

Installation

• Download the source code from https://github.com/geekscape/aiko_engine_mp and cd into it:

git clone https://github.com/geekscape/aiko_engine_mp && cd aiko_engine_mp

• Ensure you have a compatible hardware board or compatible microPython port
• Make sure you have a Python virtual environment set-up, including virtualenvwrapper
• Create mkvirtualenv micropython and work on the new virtual environment

workon micropython

• Install mpfshell

pip install -U mpfshell

• Plug in your ESP32 device and make sure you can see it, e.g ls /dev/tty.* provides e.g /dev/tty.wchserial1410
• Export the serial port to an environment variable, so mpfshell can use it, e.g export AMPY_PORT=<port> where port is the device address shown by the ls command above
• Download latest microPython
• Flash microPython

./scripts/flash_micropython.sh

• Run the Aiko Engine MP flash script

./scripts/mpf_flash.sh ./scripts/aiko.mpf

Note: For Lolin32-Lite boards, the serial port is notoriously problematic and requires a slight delay in order for the connection to occur properly. If you're seeing errors that look like ampy.pyboard.PyboardError: could not enter raw repl then this is probably related.

In this case, set a delay to sleep the program when it iss uploading the files: export AMPY_DELAY=4 will usually do the trick.

Resources

Associated open-source ESP32 hardware ...

• OHMC team's - LCA2017 IoTuz
• John Spencer's - LCA2018 LoliBot robot
• OHMC team's - LCA2021 SwagBadge