VEX V5 Template for the Rust Programming Language

Table of Contents

• VEX V5 Template for the Rust Programming Language
  • Table of Contents
  • Using This Template
  • Getting Started (macOS)
  • Getting Started (Windows)
  • Getting Started (Fedora Linux)
  • Getting Started (Debian/Ubuntu linux)
  • Development
    • Compiling and uploading to a VEX V5 robot
    • Debugging in the pros-rs simulator
    • Using smart editing features
  • Troubleshooting

Using This Template

To generate a project using this template, click the "Use this template" button in the upper right corner of the GitHub repository. Choose an appropriate name and clone the new repository using Git. Finally, update the package name in Cargo.toml:

[package]
name = "my-vex-robot"
version = "0.1.0"
edition = "2021"

Getting Started (macOS)

Run the following terminal commands to set up your Mac for development.

Install Homebrew, a package manager for macOS which is needed to configure your computer with the necessary development tools:

/bin/bash -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/HEAD/install.sh)"

Under the header "Next Steps", Homebrew may prompt you to run commands to complete the installation.

Install dependencies and The Rust Programming Language:

brew install rustup osx-cross/arm/arm-gcc-bin purduesigbots/pros/pros-cli

rustup-init -y --default-toolchain nightly

Close and reopen the terminal, and install pros-rs:

rustup component add rust-src
cargo install cargo-pros

Getting Started (Windows)

Install Rust by following the instructions on https://rustup.rs/. Configure your installation when prompted, installing a nightly toolchain and keeping other default values.

Download and run the ARM EABI Toolchain installer, choosing the first .exe file under the header arm-none-eabi.

Install Python from https://python.org/.

Run the following commands in Powershell to install pros-rs:

python3 -m pip install --user pros-cli
rustup component add rust-src
cargo install cargo-pros

Getting Started (Fedora Linux)

Run the following terminal commands to install dependencies and set up your PC for development.

sudo dnf install rustup python3-pip arm-none-eabi-gcc-cs gcc

rustup-init -y --default-toolchain nightly
pip install --user pros-cli

Close and reopen the terminal, and install pros-rs:

rustup component add rust-src
cargo install cargo-pros

Getting Started (Debian/Ubuntu linux)

If you don't have rustup:

curl --proto '=https' --tlsv1.2 -sSf https://sh.rustup.rs | sh
rustup toolchain install nightly
rustup override set nightly

If you do have rustup:

rustup update
rustup toolchain install nightly
rustup override set nightly

Install pip and the Pros CLI:

sudo apt install python3-pip
pip install --user pros-cli

Close and reopen the terminal, and install pros-rs:

rustup component add rust-src --toolchain nightly
cargo install cargo-pros

Development

Compiling and uploading to a VEX V5 robot

Use the Cargo PROS terminal utility to compile this pros-rs project.

cargo pros build

The separate pros command is used to upload. Plug in your powered VEX robot brain via USB and run the following command to upload to program slot 1. If you changed the package name when setting up this template, you may need to adapt the name of the .bin file.

pros upload --target v5 --slot 1 ./target/armv7a-vexos-eabi/debug/pros-template-rust.bin

Debugging in the pros-rs simulator

If you have PROS Simulator installed, you can use it to run this project without real VEX hardware for debugging and development purposes. Start by adding the WebAssembly Rust target:

rustup target add wasm32-unknown-unknown

Build the project for the simulator by running:

cargo pros build -s

Then open this project in PROS Simulator to run and debug the robot code.

Using smart editing features

Developers using Visual Studio Code with the rust-analyzer extension have access to smart editing features like Intellisense and code analysis. By default, rust-analyzer will check the project for errors when it is saved.

Troubleshooting

• If you experience issues with Intellisense, make sure you've built the project at least once!
• If you get the error TypeError: <flag 'BrainFlags'> has no members defined when using the third party pros upload command, you need to downgrade Python to v3.9