Members Introductions aka The Icebreaker discussion.



  • @lukasmaximus Also, bom dia :D Stick a tiny gps unit into a m5stack stick and I'll approve it, so you can sell it as a veterinarian-approved gps tracked :P



  • Hi M5Stack Faces here, pretty cool. I'm in USA and have played around with iOT projects of various nature, Arduino and others. Mostly, I like to collect mini computers; PocketChip, Arduboy, Gole1, RasPi Zero W, and of course I have an M5StickC on the way from the official store! A while back I took a C++ course and am currently working my way through a Python 3 book but I only really program for fun. I use various tools and languages across many platforms to accomplish some crazy things. Thanks for having me hope we can all grow and learn together.



  • Hello to everyone here.
    My name is Reiner, I live and work in Germany. I work as an assembler for a company that manufactures hall cranes. I think the M5Stack is great, not like the Arduino loose circuit board and so on, but the m5Stack and the sensors all compact and well thought out packed in housings.
    Unfortunately I don't always have so much time and I would be happy if sometime a manual and also UIFlow would appear translated into German.
    I have a little knowledge of Arduino, but I am not the great programmer.
    Since I also have other hobbies like 3D printing with the Anycubic Photon,i3 Mega S and the Chiron and milling with a portal milling machine for model making (Stepcraft-2/D.420).

    I'm just fascinated by writing, programming, drawing and when it's done the printer or the milling machine or the M5Stack does it.

    And the possibilities are almost unlimited because there are so many sensors, I'm still at the beginning and have to understand the M5Stack, unfortunately there are only books about the ESP32, but maybe it will change when there are more people who use it.

    Maybe someone here has a tip how and where I can learn the M5Stack and programming , would then like to program with Arduino or UIFlow !!



  • @skink Hi, I am currently working on the UIFlow book in english and hope to release a german version along side a polish and english version before the year is out.



  • @ajb2k3
    I know that I should be more familiar with English, because when it comes to programming, it will always be in English see Arduino programming software and of course UIFlow.
    I've already downloaded your manual if not yet finished and sent it through the translator, that's a really big help.
    Thank you very much for your efforts in advance!



  • @ajb2k3
    By the way, the software for the IOT Demo Board
    revised in the meantime and works now !
    There is a new version at Github.

    I had written to "support@m5stack.com" and they took a closer look at the program and the bug during compilation were fixed!



  • @skink Glad its of use. I'm currently passed the main book to work on a pure UIFlow version. I will be posting an update to it later but after that there wont be any updates until December.
    I have someone who has offered to help me with the German version so that will be of help.



  • @skink said in Members Introductions aka The Icebreaker discussion.:

    @ajb2k3
    By the way, the software for the IOT Demo Board
    revised in the meantime and works now !
    There is a new version at Github.

    I had written to "support@m5stack.com" and they took a closer look at the program and the bug during compilation were fixed!

    I started work on a uiflow guide for the demo board but ran out of time to keep working on it.



  • @ajb2k3 No problem, they work on several projects at the same time, so one or the other project has to wait.
    But as I said with the Arduino version for the test board, everything works!



  • @skink Thats because the initial source was released in c and so is easy to port to arduino. In Micropyton (and UIFLOW by extension) it is taking longer for the code to be written.



  • Hi my name is Luenardi.
    I have been tinkering with tech since i was in diapers.
    I'm from south africa born in a humble home in johannesburg.

    My interests vary from soldering valves to coding in bare asm.
    I lost my right arm 3 years ago after a accident at work due to stress.
    I collapsed and shattered my arm.

    Been learning about how AI is helping people with prosthetic arms.

    i love the modular design of m5stack products.
    Ui flow is quite handy for quick prototyping.

    i enjoy building small spider bots and tampering with AR



  • Welcome @Xeon Luenardi glad to have someone with your kind of expertise here and interested to know how M5Stack devices could be used in prototyping prosthetics. Some of our Japanese users have used M5Stack to modify wheelchair controls and a father creates rehabilitation toys with M5Stack for his son who has cerebral palsy, but nothing in the way of prosthetics yet, look forward to seeing your projects. Luke



  • @lukasmaximus
    thank you i'm very excited.



  • Hello all -- I'll jump into this icebreaker discussion. I teach media arts and musical instrument design at Brown University, in Providence, Rhode Island, USA. I've used many different platforms in my own work and teaching, from Microchip PICs to different flavors of Arduino (chipKIT and Fubarino). I'm impressed overall by the M5Stack platform, but am a bit frustrated by the lack of clarity with regard to the hardware architecture -- which unit has which IMU, for example. There are several posts that ask questions about this, with no clear answers. As a teacher, I need to be certain there won't be any unwelcome surprises when I have my class order their units. Also, I'm getting very unusable results from the magnetometer on my Fire (using the demo Arduino sketch), but I hope that is solvable (I have an unanswered post on that). As far as coding goes, I think the UI Flow environment looks promising for teaching, but I'm not sure yet if it's full-featured enough to replace coding in the Arduino IDE. I need to look into it more. Overall, I have to admit I'm a bit worried about the response rate from the M5Stack team on this forum -- there are many unanswered posts. M5Stack seems to be a great concept, but I wonder about the customer support.



  • Hello @butch I agree with you that UIFlow is not fully featured. it is built on micropython so you can expand function by using code.

    If you look in the projects forum for the uiflow handbook roadmap you will find the manuscripts for my books i'm working on. Im behind schedule on picking apart uiflow but i'm slowing finding issues that need solutions.

    if you have suggestion please lets us know.



  • I can see how to reply to a post but not how to create a new post.

    I got my wife to give me the M5Stack Core for my birthday. I am interested in using it for industrial projects. I have worked with the Arduino UNO a bit, but wanted to up my game to a 32-bit microcontroller. I also have a very, very strong interest in learning Python and MicroPython.

    So far, I have built a simple MicroPython program that responds to events from Button A and Button B. Button A causes a Grove-connected relay to turn on. Button B causes that relay to turn off. I am using UIFlow to edit the MicroPython because I cannot seem to get VSCode to work with the M5Stack and MicroPython. Using VSCode, the M5Stack keeps resetting while connected. It is very hit-or-miss even downloading a program. It is also very hit-or-miss viewing the directory tree of the M5Stack.

    On the UIFlow side, I can edit a program and save it to the computer hard drive, but when I open that program the contents are nothing approaching what I saved. I have figured out that I can copy the MicroPython code to another file and then paste it back into UIFlow after I have opened the file. The MicroPython program does download to the M5Stack fine and I can then reset the device and run my program.

    Not pleased with what I see so far, and not seeming to be able to progress with VSCode and MicroPython, I turned to Visual Studio (not Visual Studio Code) and installed the Visual Micro plugin and built a C++ program to toggle the relay. Everything works as expected.

    Apparently I need some help. I don't know if it is possible to use VSCode to program an M5Stack using MicroPython. I have seen videos on youtube that appear to demonstrate that it is possible.

    If there is someone who could guide me through the process of getting started with an M5Stack and MicroPython using VSCode, I would be grateful and would post material that might help another poor soul, who is also struggling, to get these pieces working together.



  • @hamster I can't help with vscode but I can with aspects of UIFlow as I'm writing english documents.
    Have you tried Maixpy IDE?



  • @ajb2k3, I have never heard of MaixPy IDE. I'm open to any ideas. I am downloading MaixPy IDE right now. Thanks.



  • @ajb2k3, I downloaded and installed MaixPy IDE. The M5Stack Core was not listed. I selected M5Stick. MaixPy has been sitting here for more than an hour trying unsuccessfully to connect to the device on COM5 (which is the correct port number).

    Any suggestions on how to get MaixPy IDE working with M5Stack Core?

    Any suggestions for other IDEs to try?

    Thanks



  • Let me guess, you are on windows.

    Step 1 delete driver.
    Step 2 switch off computer for a few minutes,
    Step 3 start computer but DO NOT plug in the M5Stack ,
    Step 4 install SIlabs driver,
    Step 5 restart computer,
    Step 6 Plug in M5Stack and check that you can connect.

    The com port driver is very unstable and the face that 2 IDE's are struggling point to the driver not installing correctly