Group assignment

For this group assignment we were told to demonstrate and compare the toolchains and development workflows for available embedded architectures. We chose to use the simplest code snippet possible, Quentin’s code to make the embedded LED blink, in order to quickly compare different workflows.

Workflow 1: Arduino IDE and the Arduino Uno

First, we tried using the Arduino IDE to send the code to an Arduino Uno. This was super easy and quick – we just had to plug in the Arduino, download the Arduino IDE, and copy-paste the .ino file into the IDE and press upload.

Workflow 2: VSCode + PlatformIO and the Arduino Mega

We also tried a workflow using VSCode and an extension for VSCode built specifically for embedded programming called PlatformIO. This allowed us to program an Arduino Mega 2560 (not pictured below) to do the same LED blinking. The setup was a more involved but PlatformIO seems to be more powerful and potentially more general purpose than Arduino IDE. We also tried to use PlatformIO to program the Nucleo board (pictured below) but we couldn’t find the right library for it through PlatformIO.