Jekyll2026-05-05T06:33:16+00:00http://melbournemicropythonmeetup.github.io/feed.xmlMelbourne MicroPython MeetupA monthly meetup for MicroPython EnthusiastsApril 2026 Meetup2026-04-22T00:00:00+00:002026-04-22T00:00:00+00:00http://melbournemicropythonmeetup.github.io/April-2026-MeetupDamien covers the recently-released MicroPython v1.28, Matt delivers the news roundup
News Round-up
Headlines
MicroPython v1.28
Damien covered all the important details - but we experimented with MicroPython
v1.28 Interactive Release
Notes and I’d
love to get some feedback! Please check it out and let me know what you think.
Another World
Eric Chahi’s groundbreaking 1991 game, now available on MicroPython!
This was a long-term goal for me, I’ve wanted to port the game engine for
Another World to MicroPython for a long time. The game is implemented as a
bytecode virtual machine and is pretty compact - and the power of 1990’s
cutting-edge hardware is now available in microcontrollers!
Using Claude to vibe-code this one was great fun, and seeing the intro sequence
render for the first time was pure nostalgia joy!
It’s not yet finished - rendering is a tad slow in places and sound is still a
WIP - but it’s playable on an ESP32.
You’ll need to get your hands on the game data but it’s on sale at
GOG at the
moment for A$3. Give it a try!
We briefly covered Centy Labs’ Crowd Supply project
PocketPD some time ago; it’s a
DC supply based around the concept of using the Programmable Power Supply (PPS)
extension of the USB Power Delivery (PD) standard. PPS allows a host to
negotiate 3.3-21V in 20 mV steps, and max current specified in 50 mA steps up to
100W, depending on the source capabilities. PocketPD allows you to plug in a
modern laptop power supply to provide the source for what’s effectively a DC
bench supply.
The PocketPD is built around an RP2040 and an AP33772 (USB PD/PPS negotiation)
and an INA226 for power measurement. There’s also a rotary dial, a couple of
buttons and a display for the UI. And so, while the original firmware is
perfectly fine, we figured it wouldn’t be too hard to replace it with
MicroPython…
As well as providing similar features to the original firmware, there’s also a
simulator built-in which allows experimentation against the unix port without
hardware connected. It includes a websocket renderer of the display; so the UI
experiments are easy.
STM32 NUCLEO-C5A3ZG
We covered the STM32C5 last
month and I
managed to get my hands on the ‘biggest’ Nucleo in this family. The
NUCLEO-C5A3ZG has
1MB flash and 256KB RAM as well as Ethernet.
Updating MicroPython to support the C5 has been challenging; ST have overhauled
their HAL, starting with the C5, and quite a few things have changed. But it’s
close…
STM32 NUCLEO-H5E5ZJ
Although the H5 family has been around for a couple of years now, the H5E and
H5F
range
is new and updates some features.
Upgrades to 1.5MB RAM and up to 4MB flash are generous but the
PLAY
(Programmable Logic Array) peripheral is most interesting to me. It brings
independent, configurable hardware to STs micros and, though they’re a different
design, it’ll be interesting to see how it compares to the RP2 PIOs.
M5NanoH2
This tinyM5NanoH2
arrived yesterday. The ESP32-H2 that powers it is Espressif’s low-power
BLE/Thread/Matter/Zigbee micro-of-choice.
Hardware News
WeAct Studio STM32U585
CNX recently covered the WeAct Studio STM32U585 Core
Mini. The STM32U5 is an excellent low-power micro and this particular board is very affordable. And it has MicroPython support (since v1.28).
STM32U585CIU6
Cortex M33 @ 160MHz
768KB RAM, 2MB flash
External flash
USB-C
2x20 pins, most are GPIO
US$8
Maker Go STM32U575
Seems like the U5 is flavour of the month…CNX also
covered
the Maker Go STM32U575. Breaking out more pins, adding external flash, a microSD
socket and an FPC port to connect a display, the Maker Go is slightly more
expensive and large but a little more feature-packed.
No specific MicroPython board definition…yet.
STM32U575VGT6
Cortex M33 @ 160MHz
768KB RAM, 1MB Flash
8MB external flash
microSD
2x48 pins broken out
FPC port for a display
US$15
M5Stamp ESP32P4 Module
M5Stack released the M5Stamp
ESP32P4 and the
M5Stamp Add-on C6 for
P4. This
stamp is a small, powerful, system-on-a-board and it’s castellated to make it
simple to solder to your own PCBs. Many pins are broken out, including MIPI
ports (CSI and DSI), and there is 16MB flash and 32MB PSRAM.
There’s also the add-on which is a small plug-in board that sits over the top,
adds an ESP32-C6 and provides Wifi and BLE to the stamp.
It’s a lot of hardware for the size and cost.
M5Stamp ESP32P4 US$13
M5Stamp Add-on C6 for P4 US$7
VIEWE ESP32-P4-Pi Development Board
PocketMage
There’s a new Crowd Supply project:
PocketMage. It’s a
palm-top device with a small tactile keyboard, an e-paper display and a smaller
OLED, it’s designed to be a ‘personal digital assistant’. Powered by an
ESP32-S3, it looks like it could be a useful distraction-free device!
No pricing yet.
Other news
SAM ported to MicroPython
Kevin McAleer recently ported the old Software
Automatic Mouth to MicroPython. SAM was originally written for the Commodore 64
is a well-known text-to-speech algorithm and library. Kevin’s implementation was
designed to take advantage of the PIO peripheral of the RP2 but falls back to a
SW renderer:
Although the output quality has long been surpassed using modern techniques (and
gobs of compute), SAM was quite sophisticated back in the day - and it works
quite well on microcontrollers!
Even better, he has a brilliant video that explains the concepts, challenges and
implementation:
Claude Meets MicroPython
Andrew Leech has a fantastic write-up on how to connect Claude to the ViperIDE
via an MCP Server:
baloob, in a Mastodon Post
shared that Firefox Nightly recently added the WebSerial API. This opens the
possibility that Firefox might soon be able to make connections to devices over
the serial port. 🤞
Note that the WebSerial
ticket in Bugzilla has
been open for 12 years.
Final Thoughts
Robot Golf
Air Powered Segment Display
Midjourney fun
]]>MicroPython v1.28 Released2026-04-19T00:00:00+00:002026-04-19T00:00:00+00:00http://melbournemicropythonmeetup.github.io/MicroPython-v1.28-ReleasedMicroPython v1.28 landed on April 6, 2026. Highlights:
machine.PWM now available on stm32 and alif — completing PWM support across all Tier 1 and Tier 2 microcontroller-based ports
New standardized machine.CAN API, with stm32 as the first implementation (bxCAN and FD-CAN peripherals)
The weakref module with weakref.ref and weakref.finalize classes
11 new boards across esp32, mimxrt, rp2, and stm32
We’ve put together an interactive release notes page that runs real MicroPython in your browser via PyScript. Try editing and executing the t-string and weakref examples live.
If you’re thinking of attending, the Call for
Proposals ends this week on the 29th
AOE.
Housekeeping: Luma
Some folks have mentioned they haven’t received notifications for upcoming
meetups. Now that we’re using Luma you should subscribe to the ‘overall’
MicroPython Calendar:
You’ll then get an email whenever a new meetup is scheduled and, I think, you’ll
get a reminder close to each event.
Note that each meetup also gets a unique page/URL.
I’ve noticed fewer people RSVP’ing to each event since moving to Luma; if you
could RSVP that would be really helpful! It’s hard to know if I should be
‘advertising’ it more widely - but at least having a vague idea of how many
people are coming gives me an idea about attendance.
Unfortunately (with meetup and Luma) it’s not possible to set up a recurring
event with the ‘xth Wednesday of the month’ rule.
The Dabao was discussed last
month, but
there’s an excellent article by Bunnie about one of the more unique features
of the Bao chip: BIO: The Bao I/O
Coprocessor
It’s easy to imagine a MicroPython BIO assembler, similar to that implemented
for the Raspberry Pi RP2 PIO module.
Inkplate 13SPECTRA
Last month
we covered the Inkplate 13SPECTRA, a beautiful six-colour 13” ePaper display.
Soldered recently published their Week Three
Status
that includes update to the MicroPython library but did mention “because
MicroPython is an interpreted language and not very low-level friendly, decoding
and displaying a full 1600x1200 image file can take up to a minute.”
Anyone want to prove them wrong?
(Kudos to Soldered for releasing the MicroPython library! But perf can be improved!)
Use a smartphone to process images in realtime and communicate details to a
PyBricks hub. The current example uses colour tracking so a robot can follow a
coloured ball - but Laurens mentioned “…there are more demos on the way”.
Agentic Test Bench
Provide Claude with the ability (via
scope-mcp) to communicate with
your (admittedly pricey) oscilloscope and then have your agent verify that I2C
timing is correct!
Uses MicroPython to generate the I2C signals, of course.
Sunfish is a popular Chess engine known
for it’s power, particularly given it’s simple implementation (131 LOC!).
fizban99 has published a MicroPython fork of Sunfish:
microptyhon-usunfish.
It appears to have been modified carefully, with memory use being a prime
consideration. The changes have been well documented. GPLv3.
Just need to add a graphical UI - and perhaps a touchscreen - and you’ll have
yourself a chess game that might not beat Magnus Carlsen but will challenge most
players! (Peter Hinch may already be on the
case!)
Planet Innovation recently open-sourced
micropython-mock which
provides a subset of the features unittest.mock.Mock:
frommicropython_mockimportMock# Create a mock object
mock_obj=Mock()# Use the mock
mock_obj.some_method("arg1",kwarg="value")mock_obj.another_method()# Check calls
assertmock_obj.some_method.calledassertmock_obj.some_method.call_count==1assertmock_obj.another_method.call_count==1
I’m sure we’ve discussed Jumperless
v5 before; it is the most
wonderfully over-engineered breadboard in history. It allows you to establish
connections between breadboard points by using a ‘wand’ - and there are LEDs
all over this thing so you can easily see those connections.
Anyway, Jumperless can also run
MicroPython so that you have an
API to manage
those connections in software.
More recently, creator Kevin
announced
that he’s also forked ViperIDE and made a custom IDE:
So JumperIDE is now a thing!
micrOS
BxNxM released micrOS, a MicroPython
framework to accelerate IoT development; it provides OTA updates, remote config
management and shell access, as well as a bunch of built-in peripheral drivers
to get started quickly.
I’m still wrapping my head around how it works; maybe some of you can report
back?
“The 2026 Australian GP is live. Russell and Leclerc are battling it out, and
you want the data on your desk, not a browser tab, not your phone. Something
physical that just sits there. You have an ESP32 CYD in the parts drawer:
…OpenF1 is free and has real F1 timing data.
This sounds like a fun Sunday afternoon project. It wasn’t.”
Nuno discusses the difficulties with the project; thankfully no major issues
with MicroPython! More with data wrangling since the API drops a heap of data as
a live stream; collating the information in a usable way is challenging.
An important part of his solution was to sit a Python aggregator in between the
OpenF1 API and the microcontroller.
Although our group focuses on firmware, many of us play with hardware too - and
KiCAD has become an excellent tool for electronic design and PCB layout.
Midjourney fun
]]>February 2026 Meetup2026-02-25T00:00:00+00:002026-02-25T00:00:00+00:00http://melbournemicropythonmeetup.github.io/February-2026-MeetupMatt delivers the news roundup
News Round-up
Headlines
DDD: MicroPython Community Booth
As mentioned last month, a few of us (Damien, Raf, Sean and I) attended DDD
Melbourne and hosted a MicroPython Community
Booth.
DDD was held at the Melbourne Town Hall and had around 600 attendees. The
‘booth’ was super busy, we had a steady stream of people coming through the
entire day - and it felt like we spoke to a significant percentage of those 600
attendees!
We’d hastily pulled together some demos so there was plenty of flashing LEDs,
eye-catching displays and cute gadgets on display to draw people in.
A huge thanks to everyone who helped out and to the DDD organisers that supported
our attendance.
And welcome to those of you present today that we met at DDD!
Meetup 🡆 Luma
…aaaand that’s that! I’ve now cancelled the Meetup subscription.
Scummy: When you start the cancel process, then they offer a discount to stick around.
Also Scummy: They start asking other members to host/pay the subscription.
Housekeeping
Publishing the videos often occurs after this Melbourne MicroPython Meetup
blog is updated. So the videos
have traditionally not been included. Mostly because I’m lazy and don’t update
the blog after the initial post.
However! I was recently inspired and revised the previous year or two of posts,
updating them with links to the published videos. So they’re now at the top of
the blog post
As always, thanks to Barry for processing and publishing the vids!
Hardware News
Dabao
Andrew “bunnie” Huang is - via Crowd Supply - bringing the
Dabao board to market with the help
of Sean “xobs” Cross. The Dabao is a fascinating board with some unique
properties:
RISC-V Vexriscv Core @ 350MHz
2MB RAM, 4MB RRAM (Resistive RAM aka memresistor; like flash)
USB HS
Quad core IO accelerator (based on PicoRV32)
2x UART, 3x I2C, 2x SPI, 4x PWM
But the most notable parts for me are: 1) It’s as open as possible, 2) there’s
an MMU on a micro!
Bunnie and Xobs presented at last years’ Chaos Communication Congress about
their work getting the micro built and creating the Rust-based OS, ‘Xous’, that
also has some interesting attributes, particularly how it takes advantage of the
MMU, the talk is well worth your time!
Pimoroni Badgeware: Badger, Tufty, Blinky
Pimoroni have updated some of their ‘badge’ boards and consolidated them into a
family: Badgeware! There are three badges, Badger, Tufty
and Blinky - they’re all based around the RP2350 with 8MB RAM and 16MB flash,
Wifi/BLE and an 1000mAh battery. The differences are in the displays: e-paper,
IPS and white LED.
Excellent products, all ‘round!
£49.50 ea (~A$95)
Olimex ESP32-P4-PC
Olimex released the
ESP32-P4-PC,
another P4-based board that is like a little mini-PC.
US$309 or US$349 with an enclosure and 3000mAh battery
Other news
mpytool
In Discussion #18787,
Pavel Revak announces that he’s been working on
mpytool, an alternative to mpremote.
While I’d prefer people contribute to mpremote so everyone can benefit, there
are certainly some interesting ideas in mpytool! In particular, Pavel has
implemented a mount-like feature but compiles to bytecode transparently with
mpy-cross on the PC. There’s also the ability to copy files with compression and
to symlink files into a mounted filesystem.
I hope to see some of these features uplifted to mpremote at some point!
mpy_vt: Optimized ANSI Terminal Engine for MicroPython
mpy_vt by Vincent M aims to get an ANSI
terminal running well on MicroPython. Wrapping the mature
st (suckless terminal), vi, and providing solid
hardware support for the LilyGo T-Deck,
this is a powerful, portable little unit that can Telnet into whatever box you
like!
rMach is a minimalist, Mach-inspired
microkernel designed for resource-constrained environments (ESP32/RP2040)
running MicroPython. It fits in 702 lines of code and consumes just 19.9 KB of
RAM.
Moonbench
announced
that they’ve open-sourced a Virtual Pet implementation for the ESP32:
catode32. Tested on the ESP32-C6 and C3
it ought to port to any device with little effort.
100 days, 100 IoT projects
Kritish Mohapatra, a 3rd-year EE undergrad, has a goal of 100 days, 100 IoT
projects! He’s
using ESP32’s or Raspberry Pi Pico’s and MicroPython - and documenting the whole
process.
Day 58 has just passed by at the time of writing, and Kritish has a great
collection of projects: irrigation systems, servo control, web-based interfaces,
devices communicating over ESP-NOW…there’s plenty here to learn from and I’m
delighted that he’s documenting everything so thoroughly.
If you want to support Kritish’s open source effort, he’d happily receive GitHub
sponsorship or even just buy him a coffee.
Quick Bytes
IndyPy: Python meets Microcontrollers
Last month I mentioned that I’d attended an IndyPy event where Drew Westrick
presented about using MicroPython; that talk is now available to watch online:
Speed up IOT Prototyping with
MicroPython.
A project by Yves Jeanrenaud recently popped up, Nearby
Glasses, that attempts to
detect when Smart Glasses are nearby and alert the user. It’s now available as
an Android app.
It uses some heuristics based on BLE data for the
decision-making…and it strikes me that this would be a perfect MicroPython
application!
Midjourney fun
The WorldTimeAPI has been sunset
]]>January 2026 Meetup2026-01-28T00:00:00+00:002026-01-28T00:00:00+00:00http://melbournemicropythonmeetup.github.io/January-2026-MeetupMatt delivers the news roundup
I had the pleasure of speaking with Luca and Jeff about using MicroPython
professionally on The Agile Embedded Podcast. We covered a lot of ground in the
hour-long discussion.
DDD Melbourne is a non-profit conference for
the software community which is being held on Saturday the 21st Feb at the
Melbourne Town Hall. Check out the Agenda
and, if you’re interested, get an A$89 (cheap!)
ticket.
This year, we were granted a Community Booth for MicroPython! I’ll be attending
the conference and hosting at the booth but could really use some help:
If you could help provide a demo
Help host the booth (if you’re coming)
There’ll be ~600 folks attending so it’ll be a great chance to introduce a wide
variety of devs to the fun of MicroPython!
Teenage Engineering: Ting
Teenage Engineering makes some of the coolest music gear around. You might
also remember that the Swedish electronic manufacturers are also responsible for
the industrial design of the uber cute Playdate.
TE recently released a new sampler and sequencer called RIDDIM and it has an
optional stand-alone handheld mic - TING - with built-in effects and samples.
Riddim and Ting (get it?) are inspired by the Reggae, Dub and Dancehall movement
and is designed for live music creation.
The cool part is that Ting is created with MicroPython! There are not a lot
of details yet, but the RP2350 is at the heart of the device (the part number
for the Ting is ‘EP-2350’) and MicroPython is listed in the Software
Licenses. The
EP-2350 Guide is also suggestive
that this is a MicroPython device. Will be interesting to see if anyone tries to
get the firmware running on their own device!
Thanks to Anson Mansfield’s excellent
work, the
invaluable tool Compiler Explorer now supports
MicroPython. This means you can have the tool compile code and quickly see the
disassembly, all from the comfort of a browser window.
Versions v1.20 right up to the latest v1.28 preview builds are supported!
MicroPython Mock Machine library
Very hot off the press! 🔥
Planet Innovation has been developing and using
micropython-mock-machine
for a few years now; it provides an easy way to mock out the machine module and
create unit tests that would otherwise require hardware.
We’ve been pushing to make this open-source for a very long time and I’m happy
to say that it’s now available to the coomunity! We’d also love to see
contributions and feedback so please give it a go.
Just a quick note to mention that our Meetup subscription runs out before the
February meetup - so this is the last time we’ll be using the service! It’s Luma
from now on.
As a quick refresher, ManT1S is an implementation of 10BASE-T1S, a relatively
new Ethernet standard that only uses a single twisted pair for comms and
power. At 10Mb/sec it’s not as fast as some Ethernet variants but makes up for
it in installation convenience.
M5Stack Nano H2
I ❤️ the tiny Nano form factor by M5Stack, kicked off with their
NanoC6. Now the
ESP32-H2 joins the C6 with the
NanoH2.
This 96MHz ESP32-H2 has 320KB RAM, 4MB flash, a button, an RGB LED, an IR blaster and
a grove socket. No wifi but BLE, Matter, Thread and Zigbee - should make it
useful for low-power applications.
Note that MicroPython doesn’t yet support the H2.
US$7
M5Stack M5StickS3
Another fave from M5Stack, the “Sticks” are all pretty great, particularly if
you want a little more than the Nano’s provide. Their latest, the
M5StickS3,
integrates the ESP32-S3 and has the following specs:
8MB PSRAM, 8MB Flash
1.14” 135x240 LCD display (ST7789P3)
Mic & speaker (I2S)
6-axis IMU
IR transmitter & receiver
250mAh battery
Grove, button, WiFi, BLE
US$21.50
EBYTE18 ECM50-A Industrial Controller
The
ECM50-A
is an(other) industrial controller with an ESP32-S3 at it’s heart. It supports
RS485/232, WiFi, BLE, has 2x relays and accepts 8-28V input - and there are options for LoRa
and 4G cellular. Wide temperature support too: −40°C to +85°C. The micro has 8MB
PSRAM, 16MB NOR flash and there’s a slot for a microSD card.
There are a bunch of MicroPython examples in a public
GoogleDrive
(!).
US$35 (extra for additional options)
Pololu Motoron
Pololu recently announced updates to their Motoron
range of motor
drivers.
Pretty neat! They provide an I2C (some are UART) interface that allows you to
control motors. Some even have STEMMA/QT sockets to make it super-easy to
connect.
US$20+ (depending how many motors, current limit etc)
Lilygo T-Display P4
Lilygo, as usual, have been churning out products! The feature-rich T-Display
P4 is an update to their T-Display
line (think: chunky phone form-factor).
Espressif have announced the
ESP32-E22. In a
departure from the rest of their product line this is not a general purpose
micro with radio, it’s a radio module.
But it’s a heck of a radio module! Tri-band WiFi, Bluetooth Classic and BLE 5.4.
No pricing or availability information yet but engineering samples are available
now. If you’re lucky.
Pixlpal
There’s a new project on Crowd Supply: Pixlpal. It’s “…a customizable RGB LED display for information, entertainment, and more.”.
Specs:
ESP32-S3, 8MB PSRAM, 16MB Flash
11.25” 128x64 RGB LED
Rotary encoder
Audio in/out
Custom firmware for now (with some pretty neat examples!) but, given the micro,
MicroPython support should be a doddle. I’ve reached out on their discord
server, we’ll see if there’s any interest in folks collaborating.
I haven’t read too much about it yet but MicroPython is supported and it was too
cool not to feature
Other news
Pixel Pump 2 Announced
Robin Reiter recently
announced the update to
his popular elec manufacturing tool: Pixel Pump 2.
Taking feedback from the first-gen
model, it improves many
features; notably housing the device in a smaller, slicker package. One thing
that hasn’t changed: MicroPython will continue to be used for the firmware.
Kevin McAleer has been busy!
Friend of our meetup, Kevin McAleer has been busy on a number of fronts:
He created TinyWiki, a lightweight,
self-hosted wiki system for MicroPython.
TinyCity is a very cool
SimCity-inspired city simluation game that targets the Thumby (RP2040) with it’s
tiny 72x40 display. Despite the low-res images there’s some sophistication
hidden in here! The code is an interesting read.
Author Chris Diana is looking to update the code to allow
for different (larger!) displays.
The Wi-Fi Intrusion Detection System
(WIDS) is
designed to run on a Raspberry Pi Pico W and monitors the local RF environment
to detect common wireless attacks, serving as a real-time security dashboard
accessible via any web browser. Algorithms all in MicroPython.
Orbigator
From the repo:
Orbigator is an open‑source mechanical
model that physically demonstrates how a satellite orbits the Earth. It uses a
Raspberry Pi Pico 2 and precision DYNAMIXEL servo motors to move a pointer
around a real globe, tracking a satellite’s ground track in real-time.
The system computes complex orbital mechanics—including Kepler’s laws and J2
perturbation effects—to determine the satellite’s instantaneous position
relative to the Earth’s surface.
Synchronising time to a device can be challenging. NTP is one solution but
using the WorldTimeAPI is a good alternative,
particularly if you need to use local time including daylight savings time.
I wrote
micropython-worldtimeapi
to make it easy to sync your device to the local time provided by the
WorldTimeAPI.
(Follow the link to see a most excellent image with Damien!)
I put an ESP32 in My Stationary Bike
Kyle Husman had a staionary (training) bike and wanted to measure cadence; slap in an ESP32 and watch the reed switch, voila! His write-up is well worth a read.
For those that use KiCAD, you now have one of the coolest extesions:
KiDoom!
The Mythical Man-Month at 50
One of the most influential software engineering books, the Fred Brooks classic
The Mythical Man-Month turns 50 this year. Among many pearls of widom, it also
contains one of my favourite quotes:
The bearing of a child takes nine months, no matter how many women are assigned.
]]>August 2025 Meetup2025-08-27T00:00:00+00:002025-08-27T00:00:00+00:00http://melbournemicropythonmeetup.github.io/August-2025-MeetupDamien talks v1.26, Matt delivers the news roundup
News Round-up
Videos
Housekeeping
Proposed changes to the Meetup format!
Feedback/issues
The news roundup is valuable to some people but tough for newcomers
Would like more time to work on projects during the meetup
The news roundup takes a lot of effort
One suggestion: Only do a news roundup every quarter and host it online-only.
Meetups would focus on projects.
Another: No news roundups. Record them straight to YouTube when we can get
around to them.
Also: Meetup is horrendously expensive and PSF grants have been used up.
Always great to see manufacturers contributing! Also, their recent Experiential
Robotics
Platform
(XRP) is a pretty neat starting point for a simple, affordable robot platform.
No, I’m not sure why they didn’t start with OpenMV either.
PyCon AU
A reminder that PyCon AU 2025 is only a few weeks away!
Hardware News
ManT1S
Patrick Van Oosterwijck is gathering support for the
ManT1S, a small board
featuring an ESP32 (2MB/8MB) and support for Single Pair Ethernet. With
out-of-the-box support for MicroPython.
Powerful, good Single Pair Ethernet T1S support (including PoE), castellated -
and there’s a bridge board that allows connection to regular Ethernet. Looks
great!
Patrick knows what he’s doing; he previously developed the
wESP32, one of the best PoE
Ethernet devlopment boards.
This device changed my life: Introducing Pocket Deck:
“Recently I created a kind of generic computer, specialized for productivity.
It can do life tracking, journaling, task management, and some fun.
Micropython enables standalone application development.”
Sam Neggs, with the help of Claude Sonnet 4, created a clone of the old classic
Apple II game/simulator, RobotWar, in MicroPython.
The aim of the game is to write a computer program to operate a robot. Sam’s
application implements an interpreter for the original language, renders to a
display and uses multithreading and viper for better performance.
Kevin works on the Pico Drone, implementation is all MicroPython.
Pico Drone - can we build a drone using a Raspberry Pi Pico?
Quick Bytes
Kiwi PyCon 2025
This year, Kiwi PyCon 2025 has a couple of MicroPython
Workshops. One Beginner and an
Advanced session. If anyone can help review material - or even better attend! - please reach out.
]]>July 2025 Meetup2025-07-23T00:00:00+00:002025-07-23T00:00:00+00:00http://melbournemicropythonmeetup.github.io/July-2025-MeetupSean delivers the news roundup
News Round-up
Video
MicroPythonOS
“…a lightweight and versatile operating system built entirely in MicroPython. Designed for microcontrollers like the ESP32 and desktop systems, MicroPythonOS offers a modern, Android-inspired interface with an app ecosystem, App Store, and Over-The-Air (OTA) updates.”
Initially with out-of-the-box support for Waveshare’s ESP32-S3-Touch-LCD-2 dev kit, or also desktop Linux using SDL for graphics. It even has a WebSerial installer, making installation a breeze.
I haven’t played with it yet, but it looks like it’s very well thought out and I think has some huge potential.
The event will be held from Friday the 12th to Tuesday the 16th of September at Pullman Melbourne On The Park.
Early Bird tickets have already sold out, “Enthusiast” tickets for the full three days are $550, or $220 for a single day. Tickets include full catering, and a t-shirt.
I’m not sure specifically if there’s any MicroPython talks this year, check out the program though to see if there’s anything that interests you.
Hardware News
Silicon Labs SiWx917Y
New from SiLabs, no MicroPython port just yet but it’s got lots of memory and flash, and has built-in Wi-Fi. Always good to have options from different vendors.
Waveshare ESP32-S3 1.8inch Knob Display Development Board
Waveshare have been releasing a bunch of interesting hardware lately. But this is one of the picks; a 1.8” 320x320 round display with a rotary encoder surrounding it. Of particular note is that it’s anodised and looks stunning. Volos did a video on it, definitely looks pretty cool.
Cygnet is a Feather-compatible STM32-based MCU, and a lower-cost alternative to the Swan MCU. Like the Swan, Cygnet is offered in a Feather standard form factor and uses a STM32L4 part while still providing plenty of flash and RAM to run the majority of your Notecard-powered applications.
The Cygnet (and Swan) allow you to easily use their Notecarrier and Notecards that allow simple wireless comms over various protocols - wifi, cellular and LoRa. Their library to access their Notecards - note-python - is open source and supported on MicroPython: https://github.com/blues/note-python
Only US$15, pretty good value for a pretty powerful board. On sale directly from Blues.
Lilygo T-Display Bar
Another cute little display from Lilygo, with an ESP32-S3 MCU and the ST7789 TFT display driver. I haven’t seen a specific example of MicroPython running on it, but the ST7789 should be well supported.
This is quite an interesting little product, an e-paper display combined with an ESP32-S3 and an SX1262 LoRa transceiver. LoRa has good support in MicroPython, since about 2023 – check out micropython-lib.
If you’re looking for a fun project idea, not necessarily MicroPython-related – although using MicroPython would certainly be handy, Hackaday have announced a new competition: the One Hertz Challenge. To enter all you need is a project that does something exactly once per second, doesn’t matter what.
Check out the announcement page for more info. They’ve got some “honourable mention” categories, to spark some creative thinking:
Timelords: How precisely can you get that heartbeat? This category is for those who prefer to see a lot of zeroes after the decimal point.
Ridiculous: This category is for the least likely thing to do once per second. Accuracy is great, but absurdity is king here. Have Rube Goldberg dreams? Now you get to live them out.
Clockwork: It’s hard to mention time without thinking of timepieces. This category is for the clockmakers among you. If your clock ticks at a rate of one hertz, and you’re willing to show us the mechanism, you’re in.
Could Have Used a 555: We knew you were going to say it anyway, so we made it an honorable mention category. If your One Hertz project gets its timing from the venerable triple-five, it belongs here.
The top three winners will each receive a US$150 gift certificate from the contest’s sponsor, DigiKey.
metronalmost?
Mike Coats has a fun write-up of his entry, a MicroPython-based metronome that not only doesn’t keep a steady beat… it actually never ticks once per second. I’m not sure if Hackaday are doing a wooden spoon prize for last place, but Mike would surely be in pole position for it!
Satellites and Atomic Time
Do you need very precise timekeeping in a remote location? The Network Time Protocol (NTP) is highly effective and accurate, but has one obvious drawback – it needs a network connection, to a server with a precise clock. Turns out though that MicroPython can help! As Simon Quellen Field writes it’s actually pretty easy to use the GPS receiver in a LilyGo T-Beam to act as an NTP server using the local Wi-Fi network hotspot feature. Check it out!
DIY Animatronic Endoskeleton
“Subhash” has a pretty detailed write-up of a project he’s been working on to create an animatronic endoskeleton, controlled wirelessly by a pair of ESP32s. It’s open source on GitHub, and seems like it could be a good example for teaching not just code but project planning and development. The creator says he’s just 13!
Sadly I couldn’t find any pictures, but we’ll check back in if there’s an update.
Amazing Hand
Another robotics project, and I’ve got photos of this one!
From Pollen Robotics, located in Bordeaux, France. The idea is to create an open source 3D printable humanoid hand.
They note:
Amazing Hand is :
8 dofs humanoid hand with 4 fingers
2 phalanxes per finger articulated together
flexible shells allmost everywhere
All actuators inside the hand, without any cables
3D printable
400g weight
low-cost (<200€)
open-source
They have code for driving it with Python (that is, “big” Python on a computer via a serial interface), or from an Arduino. I wonder if Subhash, from the previous project, could integrate his ESP32 MicroPython code to drive the Amazing Hand??
There’s a good chance you’ve used the Raspberry Pi pinout map at pinout.xyz before – but did you know there’s also a whole bunch more, for MicroPython supported boards? In particular, RP2 and ESP32 boards.
Have you got an old Mac lying around, with a Motorola 68k series CPU? You know, the cool ones from the late 80s and early 90s? And if so, have you considered MicroPython for your application development needs?
Jeff “jepler” Epler has been working on a Mac m68k port - to run MicroPython on a retro cool Mac. Jeff was a core dev on CircuitPython so he knows his stuff, and needs to for this port! It’s a 16bit architecture which required a number of changes. But if you read through his Mastodon posts he’s come a long way!
Midjourney visualising Oliver and Matt coding, with Claude (note that beards are
necessary if you ask for a ‘developer’!):
]]>May 2025 Meetup2025-05-28T00:00:00+00:002025-05-28T00:00:00+00:00http://melbournemicropythonmeetup.github.io/May-2025-MeetupMatt delivers the news roundup. Oliver demos updates to mim. Hans gives an Octoprobe update.
Videos
News Round-up
Big ticket items
MicroPython v1.25.0 Released
MicroPython v1.25.0 brings several exciting new features:
ROMFS (Read-Only Memory Filesystem)
All the benefits of frozen code
Without the inconvenience of building it in with your firmware!
New Alif Ensemble Port
Dual-core support with OpenAMP
WiFi and Bluetooth connectivity
USB support via TinyUSB
RISC-V Inline Assembler
New @micropython.asm_rv32 decorator
Write RISC-V machine code snippets callable from Python
Available on rp2 port when running in RISC-V mode
The release also includes improved mpremote tool (recursive rm!), enhanced
ESP-IDF support (v5.3/v5.4), and a host of improvements and performance
optimizations across platforms.
There were ~120 PRs raised, ~20 have been accepted. There’s another batch of
Gitlab PRs to come, too.
Claude wasn’t perfect, there were a few mistakes, it required some
back-and-forth and it wasn’t free. The session, including 5-ish hours of
compute cost ~AU$65.
But it would have been a very, very tedious task - I’m convinced I wouldn’t
have completed it.
PyCon AU
PyCon AU 2025 has been announced - for here in
Melbourne - and the Call for Proposals is
open! It closes on the 15th June so do consider presenting a talk (particularly
if it’s MicroPython-related!).
Improving Garbage Collection Time
CircuitPython lead dev, Scott Shawcroft, published a blog post on improving
garbage collection time in
CircuitPython.
Scott had observed that GC collection times could blow out, particularly with
the larger memory available on newer micros. Digging further, Scott discovered
some worst-case scenarios where the gc.collect() could take almost 20 seconds!
The workaround implemented in CircuitPython is to use selective
collect, effectively
informing the gc to ignore certain allocations. It can dramatically improve gc
collections for some scenarios.
Scott has been in touch with Damien since the same gc is present in MicroPython.
The crank inflates bellow to maintains a reservoir of air - and the rotation
determines the playback speed. Solenoids control the air flowing into the pipes,
carefully timed by MicroPython software running on an ESP32-S3. The tunes are
defined by MIDI files and a playlist can be managed with app rendered in a
browser.
Favourite feature: A microphone is used to automatically iterate through the
solenoids and play each pipe to detect the note and use it for configuration.
Everything - hardware, mechanics, software - is available on the
crank-organ repo and the software
design and
development
write-up is full of gems.
Matt’s New Hardware
M5Stack Tab5
The M5Stack
Tab5
is M5Stack’s first tablet-like IoT development kit, featuring:
ESP32-P4 (400MHz RISC-V dual-core) + ESP32-C6-MINI for connectivity
5-inch IPS touchscreen (1280×720), 2MP front camera
Eric Migicovsky is part of the team bringing back the Pebble Watch (see
RePebble!).
Although their first watch will use the venerable nRF52840, they are looking to
the future and Eric wrote up how they selected their next-gen micro: How To
Build A Smartwatch: Picking A
Chip.
They arrived at the SiFli
SF32LB52J
which is a super interesting little micro!
Arm Cortex-M33 cores
HCPU: Up to 240MHz, 512KB SRAM (high performance)
LCPU: Up to 24MHz, 64KB SRAM (ultra-low-power)
Bluetooth 5.3 dual-mode, BLE audio support
2D/2.5D GPU with hardware acceleration, LCD controller
24-bit DAC/ADC, I2S interfaces
45 GPIOs, USB 2.0 Full Speed
Open-source sw support was a huge consideration
The HAL looks reasonably well documented…and this micro appears designed to
run MicroPython!
A dev board - with 16MB flash and 8MB PSRAM - is available from AliExpress for
~AU$40.
AU$79. The catch? Shipping to Australia almost doubles the cost…
Clockwork PicoCalc
The PicoCalc is very neat
portable device built around a decent display and qwerty tactile keyboard.
ClockworkPi v2.0 mainboard
Raspberry Pi Pico 1 H Core module (replaceable!)
320x320 4-inch IPS screen (SPI interface)
Ultra-portable QWERTY Backlit keyboard on board (I2C)
Dual speaker
ABS plastic shell, tempered glass cover
32GB high-speed SD-card with optimized BASIC firmware
US$75
MicroPython on the PicoCalc
Lofi Fren released PicoCalc MicroPython,
MicroPython firmware and script collection for the PicoCalc. It was, in turn,
built on top of
PicoCalc-micropython-driver
by Zenodante. Both of these projects - and the community in general - seem to be
very active!
Seeed Studio Minichord Synthesizer
A “co-create collaboration” with Seeed Studio, the Minichord
Synthesizer is a
fascinating open source (HW too!) device designed to help create music. Chord
buttons, Harp Touch Zone and MIDI support via Platform IO. Built around the
Teensy 4.0.
US$170
Seeed Studio XIAO 7.5” ePaper Panel
Seeed
announced
the XIAO 7.5 Inch ePaper
Panel, an
attractive 800x480 ePaper display powered by a XIAO ESP32-C3. They advertise
that it works with ESPHome in Home Assistant.
If you’re looking for an ePaper Panel this is a neat option.
US$70
T-Pico2350 Development Kit
The LilyGo T-Pico-2350 is an update to
their earlier T-Picos which have been a combination of an RP and ESP32 micros.
This one is an RP2350+ESP32-C6.
While the RP2350 drives most of the peripherals, the ESP32-C6 handles radio
comms but also has pins broken out. It’s an interesting combination!
CNX
have a detailed review but these are the main specs:
Raspberry Pi RP2350A (dual-core Arm Cortex-M33/RISC-V @ 150 MHz)
PyCon Italia 2025 Marc-André Lemburg will
speak at PyCon Italia 2025
in Bologna (May 30). “Programming hardware displays the easy way - using
MicroPython and LVGL”
PyCon Austria 2025 Alexander Fomin presented“Python Beyond the Usual: Building an RC Car with MicroPython” demonstrating
robotics applications.
I2CTargetMemory
Damien recently raised a PR for an implementation of
I2CTargetMemory.
Appears simple and easy-to-use:
Ciro Cattuto released a RISC-V emulator in pure Python! Further, with emulated peripherals, even MicroPython can be run under the emulator:
$ ./riscv-emu.py --raw-tty--ram-size=4096 prebuilt/micropython.elf
Welcome to MicroPython on RISC-V!
MicroPython v1.25.0 on 2025-05-01; emulated with risc-emu.py
Type "help()"for more information.
>>>
This looks like an amazing well-supported emulator and, if you’re interested in
RISC-V, this is a must-look-at project.
PYPER2 is “a fully 3D-printed electric rover that uses common inexpensive
components, is powered by a Raspberry Pi Pico, and programmed in MicroPython.”
All design files and software are available - and clearly Tim has had some fun
with PYPER2!
PrestoDeck, a DIY Spotify Music Player
Fatih Ak created the PrestoDeck, a DIY
Spotify music controller built for the Pimoroni Presto. “It displays the album
cover art, name, and artist of the currently playing track and provides basic
controls for playback.”
Super Famicom Cartridge Reader
xsk’s sfc-cartridge-pico project
implements a Super Famicom cartridge reader in MicroPython using an RPi Pico and
shift registers.
This was the motivation behind the
rp_blink_faster investigation
(covered in the March
Meetup) to
determine the most efficient way to toggle a pin.
The TV-B-Gone emits a whole bunch of TV infrared signals to turn off many TV’s.
The old project no longer worked for many modern TVs and was built around the
aging ATTiny. Ned has updated it to run on MicroPython, on an ESP32-S3, and has
updated the TV support.
Apart from being a cool project, there’s also a detailed README explaining how
it works and how to construct your own.
Brian’s polytunnel is a kilometer from their house so they need to remotely
monitor the state of the soil. They employ soil moisture sensing, LoRa, humidity
sensing, e-ink, solar power and battery charging, orchestrating it all with
MicroPython. Back at home they tie it in to a Home Assistant system to display
the information.
It’s a brilliant write-up on the design of the project and includes many
crucial details. The code and hardware designs are available at
pi-pico-lora-soil-monitor.
SAM
Quan Lin has done a superb job of porting the old SAM (Software Automatic Mouth)
Text-To-Speech program to pure Python:
micropython-smatts.
SAM was cutting-edge 40 years ago so calibrate your
enthusiasm (any Andor
fans?), this won’t compete with modern LLM TTS. I remember being astonished by
it when using it on my Commodore64 back in the day and to see it running on
microcontrollers filled me with nostalgic joy.
Excellent work from Andy Crook with his
Hub75-24bit RP2 driver. Hub75’s are
the large, cheap LED panels, in this case a 64x64 matrix. His driver provides
24-bit colour, HW accelerated drawing (via PIO), BMP loading, font support and
3D textured model support (!). There’s even a particle system.
Thanks to Jos Verlinde, mpremote now has a tree
command
utop
Daniël van de Giessen wrote an implementation of top,
utop, which was
recently merged into micropython-lib. Currently ESP32-only but the API is
designed to be consistent across all ports.
YAML Parser for MicroPython
mpy-yaml provides YAML parsing and
writing capabilities for MicroPython. From Carlglglz.
RP2350 UART Bootloader
One improvement of the RP2350 is that the bootloader can be controlled - and
firmware updated - over a UART connection. Thomas Pfister has a great blog post,
Booting the RP2350 from
UART and an accompanying
video.
PicoShell is a lightweight, real-time CLI written in
MicroPython for the Raspberry Pi Pico.
Pico 2 Getting Started Guide
Random Nerd Tutorials has published a comprehensive getting started
guide
for Raspberry Pi Pico 2, covering both MicroPython and Arduino IDE.
ESP-NOW MIDI Library
Thomas Geissl wrote
ESP-NOW-MIDI, an Arduino library
that enables wireless MIDI communication between ESP devices. A very cool idea!
There’s a CircuitPython lib - that ought to be very similar to a MicroPython
implementation.
An excellent beginner project, Gary Explains how to build a Nerdy Digital
Dice. Covers D4 to D20 dice and is
a great intro to microcontroller development with MicroPython.
Midjourney visualising Oliver and I coding, with Claude (note that beards are
necessary if you ask for a ‘developer’!):
]]>March 2025 Meetup2025-03-26T00:00:00+00:002025-03-26T00:00:00+00:00http://melbournemicropythonmeetup.github.io/March-2025-MeetupHank shows off his latest doohickey. Matt delivers the news roundup.
News Round-up
Videos
Big ticket items
New OpenMV Kickstarter: Two new cameras!
OpenMV has announced a new Kickstarter for the OpenMV N6 and
AE3!
These are both exciting upgrades to the previous generation of OpenMV cams,
using the new
STM32N6
and Alif Ensemble E3, both are
powerful micros and include support for HW accelerated ML - very useful for
image processing!
There is a lot to talk about with these cameras and co-founder Kwabena Agyeman
has been in many interviews - see the March OpenMV
newsletter
for a list of his appearances, including this interview with Damien:
Update: The Kickstarter was fully funded (AU$80K goal) in a couple of days.
The libraries look to be quite high-quality and are all mip-installable. Great support from SparkFun!
It’s also worth noting that there have been some recent PRs for SparkFun boards…
Matt’s New Hardware
None this month (!).
Hardware News
STM32U3 series
ST announced
the new
STM32U3
range of microcontrollers. Super low-power (10μA/MHz, twice the efficiency of
the U5) but also powerful - a 96MHz Cortex-M33 core with 256KB RAM and up to 1MB
flash. Throw in a couple of I3C interfaces low-power comparators, ULP timers and
up to 82 GPIO and these are amazingly meaty for the power they consume.
Seeed Studio XIAO 6-Channel Wifi DC Relay
Seeed Studio released a 6-channel
Relay
powered by an ESP32-C6 XIAO. Handy piece of kit!
US$20
Silicon Labs announces tiny BG29 microcontroller
For “Smart Teeth”!
Silicon Labs
reveal
their very small (2.6x2.8mm) BLE-capable Cortex-M33 BG29. And it packs a
punch, 77MHz, 256KB RAM, 1MB flash. They seem to be aiming it at medical
applications but it looks generally useful to me!
No pricing yet.
Other news
You Should Build a Robot (MicroPython and MicroProcessors)
Sage Elliott presented a compelling argument as to
why you should build your own robot at PyCascades in Portland. With MicroPython,
naturally!
Pin IO performance - for Retro Computing goodness
XSK started investigating Pin IO performance, trying to figure out how to optimise code in MicroPython for bitbanging. Turns out he was trying to create a reader for SNES cartridge ROMs - so IO perf was important! I pointed him toward Damien’s Writing fast and efficient MicroPython and threw in a couple of other suggestions and off XSK went, delving into using mem32, thumb assembly and a few other methods.
Fast transfers using Dupont wires and breadboards rarely end well - and so signal integrity also needed to be resolved:
Really interesting project!
Important LVGL bindings MR merged
The long-standing !341
MR in the LVGL
Bindings repository was merged recently! Although deep in the weeds, this MR
lays the foundation for an easier integration of LVGL and MicroPython by
allowing the bindings to co-exist more smoothly as a standard C user module.
It’s still challenging to build MicroPython with LVGL support but this is a huge
step in the right direction to simplifying the process. Stay tuned!
In a Github
Discussion,
MichaelMuckKremtz notes that his recent interaction with the LLM DeepSeek
informed him all about a stepper motor driver that long-time MicroPython
contributor Peter Hinch wrote. Which doesn’t exist and never happened!
Intellisense Knows What We Need
Thanks folks!
]]>December 2024 Meetup2024-12-11T00:00:00+00:002024-12-11T00:00:00+00:00http://melbournemicropythonmeetup.github.io/December-2024-MeetupDamien covers the latest v1.24[.1] and upcoming v1.25 releases. Matt delivers the news roundup.
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.
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!
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
announcedTempe; 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!
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).
