Set Up CircuitPython

Plug in your board

The first thing you need to do to get CircuitPython working is plug your board in. You may see a new drive on your computer called RPI-RP2 or something similar. You can ignore that for now.

Flashing your board

Head to the CircuitPython website downloads page and find your board. Depending on the board you have, there may be some different options like DOWNLOAD .UF2 NOW or OPEN INSTALLER. If your board has an OPEN INSTALLER option, click on that and choose Full CircuitPython Install. This will guide you through the full process to get your board up and running on CircuitPython. If it does not have that option, click the DOWNLOAD .UF2 NOW button. You do not need to open the file you downloaded. Just download it, find it on your computer, and follow the steps in the next section.

Uploading a UF2 file

If you have to upload the UF2 file yourself, the process is very straightforward. You should have one or two buttons on your microcontroller: a BOOT button, and sometimes also a RESET button (they may have slightly different labels like BOOTSEL or RST).

1. Press and hold down the BOOT button while pressing RESET once.
   • If you do not have a RESET button, unplug your microcontroller and plug it back in while holding down BOOT.
2. A new drive should pop up on your computer called something like RPI-RP2.
3. Take the UF2 file you downloaded earlier and drag it onto this new drive.
4. It will disappear, and a new drive called CIRCUITPY will show up. Congratulations, you have installed CircuitPython!

Making sure the web uploader is working

Now that you have CircuitPython working, we need to make sure everything is working on the web code editor.

1. Click Connect below. You should get a pop up asking you to select the CIRCUITPY drive on your computer.
2. You should then get another pop up asking you to select your serial port. There should be a port that has something about CircuitPython in the title, but if not, just unplug your microcontroller to see which port goes away, then plug it back in and select that port.
3. If everything worked as it should, click Run on Device and you will see a message printing to the console over and over.

I can't connect

Make sure that you are using either Google Chrome or a Chrome-based browser like Microsoft Edge. If you are still having issues post in the discord.