When we first sent you the m5sticks, we preloaded “Firmware” onto the device that allows it to communicate with UI Flow. We essentially programmed in the translator that allows the stick to figure out what “Blockly” and “Micropython” instructions actually mean. We programmed the firmware in advance, because this can’t be done if you only have a Chromebook or iOS device, and it takes a little bit of tech know-how.
While you should not need to do this for the purposes of Shad, there are new versions of the firmware being developed continuously, that provides better and better functionality. Should you be interested or have a need to do this yourself, here are the steps to update the firmware in either a Windows or Mac OS. I haven’t tried it with the new M1 Macs, but in principle it should work…
Difficulty: no programming difficulty, but a reasonable understanding of computers is needed for this. This is not necessary for the purposes of Shad!
Step 1: Download the drivers needed so that your computer can talk to the m5stickC
Go to: https://ftdichip.com/drivers/d2xx-drivers/
Scroll down the page, and download the driver for your operating system (only Windows! Mac users don’t seem to need this). Install the drivers suited to your operating system. On Windows, you should download the “Setup Executable” file from the right-most column.
Open the zip file, run the .exe file. This will install drivers to allow your stick to communicate with your PC. To confirm that the driver is installed correctly, When you plug the m5stickC in, go to “Device Manager” in the Control Panel, look at Ports (COM & LPT), you should see a “USB Serial port (COM?)” listed, where ? is a number. That is the COM port assigned to your device, a unique number that the computer uses to know which device it is talking to. Mac doesn’t have to deal with this.
Note – Mac users, if you run into problems, you MAY need to install D2xxHelper from this webpage (CMD-F on the page to find it). But for now, don’t worry about it
Step 2: Download the software to burn the firmware to your m5stickC
Plug your m5stickC into your computer USB port using the USB cable provided.
At https://flow.m5stack.com (the UI Flow), look for the Settings Gear in the right-most drop down menu. Download and install “m5burner” for either Mac or Windows. Mac users will have to drag the .app file into their Applications folder. Run the program:
On the top left panel, drop down the COM menu and select the COM port assigned to the m5stickC (in the example, on this Windows PC, mine is COM4, you may have something different). You can set the baud rate at 750000.
On a Mac, it’s even easier – just look for something that looks like /dev/tty.usbserial-SOMENUMBERS. It’s the “usbserial” part that’s important. Baudrate can also be 750000.
In the left panel, click on “StickC”. This will pull up all the firmware options available.
We’re using the UIFLOW (StickC Plus), so first download the latest version of the UIFLOW(StickC Plus) firmware, and then hit “Configuration” to enter your Wifi details. This will automatically program the stick to connect to your Wifi network. Click Save, and then “Burn”.
Note – there’s a bunch of other games and things that you can burn directly as firmware onto the m5stick. Feel free to do so, but remember you have to burn a fresh copy of the UIFLOW firmware before you can program it with UI Flow.
(Optional) Step 3: Clean up any unwanted files
The firmware burns some preset files onto the stick that are not very useful. To delete them, I wrote a small script that you can run, that lists the .py files in the memory, and on pressing the button deletes them. Just for convenience, this is the file to load and run: delFiles.m5f
Alternatively, you can just live with them on your stick, they won’t bother you.
