Rust Embedded Workshop

The Embedded track aims to serve as a first step in working with Embassy-rs.

What is Embassy-rs?

It is a full-fledged embedded framework for Rust embedded development. Besides the implementation of the embedded-hal for different MCUs (STM32, nRF52, nRF53 and nRF91, ESP32 and RP2040), embassy-rs provides several functions like timers, BLE and network communication.

What microcontroller are we using?

For this workshop we will use the Raspberry Pi Pico W, which is a flexible, low-cost board. The MCU powering it is a RP2040, which is an Arm Cortex M0+.

Prerequisites

Rust Toolchain

In order to install the tools needed to compile Rust code, follow the next steps, depending on your operating system.

Linux/MacOS

Run the this command in terminal:

$ curl --proto '=https' --tlsv1.2 -sSf https://sh.rustup.rs | sh

This downloads and runs rustup-init.sh, which in turn downloads and runs the correct version of the rustup-init executable for your platform.

$ sudo apt-get install libudev-dev

Windows

Download the respective executable:

• RUSTUP-INIT.exe - 64bit
• RUSTUP-INIT.exe - 32bit

You may be prompted to install Visual Studio C++ Build tools. If so, follow the instructions from the previous link.

The last step is to run rustup --version in terminal. If everything went well, you should see an output similar to this:

rustup 1.26.0 (5af9b9484 2023-04-05)
info: This is the version for the rustup toolchain manager, not the rustc compiler.
info: The currently active `rustc` version is `rustc 1.76.0 (07dca489a 2024-02-04)`

Probe-rs

For actually flashing and running our applications on the Raspberry Pi Pico, we need to install the probe-rs tool: Installation Guide.

Tasks

You will find the tasks in the src directory. The order is: hello, color, smart_clock. Each module will have the task written in the top comment. Example for running the hello task:

$ cargo run --release --bin hello