Python API for the EV3 Spiker robot.
When I started working with ev3dev and micropython I ran into some problems that took me more time than I care to admit. If you want to start coding the EV3 I recommend you first start with some of the models Lego provides (in this case Spiker) until you get familiar with the mechanics of the motors and sensors.
I want this project to be a good reference on how to setup a development environment and the first steps you can take to code.
You can get information on how to setup your EV3 brick to run Python programs in here.
My IDE (and Lego's ) of choice is Visual Studio Code. You can get more information on how to install it at https://code.visualstudio.com/
Once you have that installed, you should get the EV3 and Python extensions for VS Code. Both are included as suggested extensions in this project. Because I added some docs to the project, we want to exclude those from being downloaded to the EV3, for this you have to go to the ev3dev-browser extension settings (this extension gets installed along with the EV3 extension) and in the 'Ev3dev Browser › Download: Include' section you should have **/*.{py,png}
Once you have the project open, we should create a new Python virtual environment as we need to install a couple of libraries and we don't want to do that globally. Go to your VS Code terminal tab and type
python3 -m venv .venv
This will create a new .venv directory in your project. This contains a Python interpreter and pip (package manager).
For activate this new environment type
. .venv/bin/activate
Then we should upgrade our package manager
pip install --upgrade pip
And last we should install both ev3dev and pybricks libraries. This will allow for code autocompletion and suggestions.
pip install python-ev3dev2
pip install pybricks-stubs
After this, connect your robot with the EV3 DEVICE BROWSER section in VS Code and with the main.py file open, press F5 in your keyboard. This will download the program to your robot and will run it.
I consider this as done, I'm moving to other ev3 robots of my own design.
Hanzel Legarda
Code released under the license CC0 1.0 Universal.