December 2024 Meetup
Damien covers the latest v1.24[.1] and upcoming v1.25 releases. Matt delivers the news roundup.
Release milestones
News Round-up
Big ticket items
PyCon AU
PyCon AU 2024 was held at the end of November and, as usual it was a big event!
The videos are now all available. 88 of them for your viewing pleasure!
- Anthony Joseph: from seeds import plants: using IoT to grow healthy herbs
- Damien George, Julian Dinsdale: Teaching Digital Technologies in Australian schools with Python and the Kookaberry
- Matt Trentini: MicroPython: The best bits!
Sprint day: HIL testing, board definitions…
Hans and Octoprobe
(Damien to discuss)
Reverse Engineering MicroPython Frozen Modules
From DEF CON 32, you can now check out Wesley McGrew’s Reverse Engineering MicroPython Frozen Modules talk.
In this talk, Wesley will walk the audience through the process of identifying “frozen”/compiled modules in a firmware image without debug symbols using the Ghidra disassembler. The relevant module, string, object, and raw code data structures will be detailed, so that everything required to rebuild a non-frozen module can recovered. Once a compiled module is reconstructed, Wesley will present a detailed example of reading and understanding MicroPython compiled bytecode, for the purpose of reverse engineering the purpose and implementation of the module.
Paused: Moving away from Meetup.com
Meetup.com has had a reprieve! The PSF have reached out and have indicated that we may be eligible for a grant to cover the meetup costs. Seems like it’s a common issue…
I did look at other options but none were particularly compelling.
Matt’s New Hardware
Quiet lately during the PyCon craziness!
Makerdiary i.MX RT1011 Nano Kit
(Covered in September)
The i.MX RT1011 Nano Kit is a new board for sale at Makerdiary.
- NXP i.MX RT1011 500MHz Cortex M7
- 128KB RAM, 16MB flash
US$15
nRF54L15 DK
Specs:
- 128MHz Cortex M33
- 256KB RAM, 1.5MB flash
- RISC-V 128MHz co-processor
- BLE 6.0
Hardware News
Waveshare ESP32-P4-NANO
As reported by CNX Software, Waveshare have released a small ESP32-P4 dev board.
- ESP32-P4 dual-core 400MHz RISC-V
- 768KB RAM/32MB PSRAM
- 128KB flash + 16MB flash
- Wifi (via ESP32-C6-MINI)
- 50mm square
AU$32
LilyGO T-Keyboard S3 Pro
- ESP32-S3, 8MB PSRAM, 16MB flash
- STM32G0 co-processor, 8KB RAM, 64KB flash
- 0.85” 128x128 RGB LCD on each button
- 1x optional rotary encoder (instead of fifth button)
- Up to 6x units magnetically “stackable” on all four sides (via I2C)
US$62 (US$51 for slave devices, no ESP32-S3)
Other news
MicroPython in Orbit (podcast)
MicroPython in Orbit: Filip’s Story of Satellite Innovation
In this episode of Inspiring Computing, I chat with Filip Rak, the team leader at the Czech Aerospace Research Center. Filip tells me about his journey from engineering to leading the development of attitude and orbit control systems for satellites. We talk about the technical challenges and triumphs, like launching satellites and using MATLAB and MicroPython. Filip also shares how they took a selfie from space at their facility and how this achievement inspired future projects. He also talks about the complexity of late attitude control, using cube sats with limited resources, and their agile risk tolerance approach. The conversation highlights how advanced computing is used in aerospace and emphasizes the importance of balancing innovation with practical constraints.
Sand drawing robot
Travis Howse, over the past few years, has built an amazing sand drawing device!
He’s documented the whole process thoroughly and there are some great videos too.
T-Watch 2020 Camera Remote
Dave Wickam, aka turmoni, wanted to control and monitor the recording and battery status of his two cameras while riding his bike. So he wrote some MicroPython to implement the appropriate protocols to connect to his TomTom Bandit and GoPro camera. A little UI and voila, t-watch-2020-camera-remote!
Tempe: Efficient Purely-MicroPython Graphics
Corran Webster has announced Tempe; a pure MicroPython library built on framebuf for rendering data visualizations.
A key feature of the library is to use partial updates - render to small framebuffers that represent a portion of the physical display. Using this technique it’s possible to conserve memory and still be fast.
It’s looking great! It’s early days and Corran has requested assistance with testing and feedback - if you’re at all interested in this domain please check it out!
Pocket Spectrometer
Chinna Devarapu published a BlueSky thread about his Pocket Spectrometer.
I’m building what might be the smallest opensource spectrometer with an easy to use UI! I call it a pocket spectrometer. Combining #M5StickC (~$20) with AS7341 sensor (~$16). My goal? A complete spectrometer that is barely larger than a sample cuvette itself.
Quick bytes
ulab is looking for help
As reported in the recent OpenMV news, ulab is looking for assistance to improve performance, particularly on micros that support ARM’s Helium instruction set. If that’s you, get in touch with lead dev, Zoltán Vörös.
Bad Apple at 480x480 via RP2350 PIO
Mike Bell invested some time in making a PIO-powered driver for his 480x480 display and played Bad Apple with it; including PWM audio! Result looks smooth (helped by a 240MHz overclock).
Final Thoughts
Hacking Robot Vacuums
The fascinating ABC article We hacked a robot vacuum — and could watch live through its camera should make you feel nervous.
BlueSky
BlueSky - worth a look! A lot of MicroPython news appearing there, particularly in the wake of Twitter/X’s continuing decline.
Thanks folks!
