Repository to aid a live demo of how to use PlatformIO for the SunrIde Training Programme.
Contents:
On the Avionics team for Project Sunride, one of our tasks is the programming of the flight computer of the rocket. In the past, the Arduino IDE was used.
PlatformIO is a much better way of programming microcontrollers than the Arduino IDE. It is described as a “professional collaborative platform for embedded development”. It has many features that we can use to improve the quality of the code we write, and to work together as a team.
First, make sure that VS Code is installed with the PlatformIO extension
You can install the PlatformIO extension for VS code by searching for it in the "Extensions" tab on the left
After installing PlatformIO to VS Code, you can create a new project by navigating to the PlatformIO tab on the left.
You can then open PIO Home (or it will open automatically)
To create a new project, click new project, then use the wizard to specify the name, board, framework and location for your project.
VS Code will then open this project for you, or you can open it manually like any other project.
Based on the settings above, a configuration file would be generated that looks like this:
; Please visit documentation for options and examples
; https://docs.platformio.org/page/projectconf.html
[env:nanoatmega328]
platform = atmelavr
board = nanoatmega328
framework = arduinoThe configuration file is split into sections, denoted by a [header]. Each section contains key/value pairs. Comments can be written in the file by using the ; character.
Each project can have different configuration environments. These are declared using [env:<name>] sections. In the example above, one environment is defined, and it is called nanoatmega328. The environment definition contains 3 key-value pairs, which define the platform, board, and framework that the environment shall use. The project setup wizard chose these values for me when I selected the Arduino Nano board, but if you want to use another board you can do so by referring to the PlatformIO boards documentation.
The default entry point to our project is found in the src folder and is called main.cpp. It is here where we can write our Arduino code. As shown in the screenshot, add code for the Arduino Blink project to this file.
#include <Arduino.h>
void setup() {
// put your setup code here, to run once:
// initialize digital pin LED_BUILTIN as an output.
pinMode(LED_BUILTIN, OUTPUT);
}
void loop() {
// put your main code here, to run repeatedly:
digitalWrite(LED_BUILTIN, HIGH); // turn the LED on (HIGH is the voltage level)
delay(1000); // wait for a second
digitalWrite(LED_BUILTIN, LOW); // turn the LED off by making the voltage LOW
delay(1000);
}Make sure that the arduino is plugged in to your computer via USB. Following this, you can build and upload your code by using the PIO Upload command.
In VS code, this can be done in three different ways:
Click on the PlatformIO tab, then click on the Upload task for the nanoatmega328 environment.
You will then see a command window appear, which after a few seconds should say SUCCESS
In VS code, you can use the keyboard shortcut CTRL+ALT+U to upload your code.
You can start a command line session within the PIO environment by clicking here:
Then run the command
pio run -t upload
The PlatformIO Registry contains over 10,000 libraries from software vendors, open-source projects, and the community.
One of the featured libraries is ArduinoJSON, which is the most popular Arduino libray on GitHub.
The installation page for the library can be found here. This page shows how the library can be installed manually, but we can also use the PlatformIO Home UI to do this.
The above example adds this line to platformio.ini. You can do this manually, by referring to the installation page of the library
The library page also contains an examples section, which you can refer to when understanding how to use the library.