PyCon.de: Python on bare metal, micropython on the pyboard - Christine Spindler¶

Tags: pycon, python

(One of my summaries of a talk at the 2017 PyCon.de conference).

(See also yesterday’s talk)

There’s a lot of power and functionality in microcontrollers nowadays. But they are harder and harder to program. Wouldn’t python be a great fit? It allows beginners to do things they couldn’t do before.

Micropython is a powerful and modern language with a large community, especially intended for very constrained/embedded systems.

If you program for embedded systems, you really have to know the hardware. This is different from “regular” programming.

Micropython started with a succesful kickstarter. In 2016, the BBC used it for 7 million school children. There was also a kickstarter for porting it to the super cheap ESP8266 chip.

Fun facts:

• ESA (European space agency) is sponsoring development to make it even more reliable. They’re planning to use it in satellites.

• It is certified for use in traffic management devices in the UK!

There were some pyboards and people could play with it. Very nice is that you don’t need an IDE: you can just connect to the board and type around on the python prompt.

Photo explanation: some 1:87 scale figures on my model railway (under construction).