PICOLATOR V2
- 42 Devlogs
- 72 Total hours
Picolator is a handheld divice powered by a pi pico. The first version was coded in MicroPython, and now I'm rewriting it on C++ for better perfomance and flexibility.
Simple taskbar!
Added a simple status bar to the picolator!
At the time its very minimal, but later it will show more stuff.
How it works
- The status bat shows the currently running app by accessing the Navigator class.
- It is displayed over the current app, but before the all the features.
Why I did it
I thought that it would be nice to always know which app you are in, and because I dont want to put a header in each app, a status bar is the best solution.
Also, I can later use it to show other stuff so its just nice to have :D
Whats about the AI chat app I never finished?
well… its still not finished idk if it ever will be finished.
Conclusion
I actually did varios stuff, but the most major change I made was the status bar so I post it here.
Thanks for reading btw XD
5 Hours for almost nothing xD
well its been very long time, I’ve been working on the AI app all this time…
I almost made it so you can enter your own api key, but like always it isnt saving properly and is just not working.
I also improved the AI chat a bit, made so it shows the errors, only for it to always show “UNKNOWN ERROR”.
It kinda looks that the project is a bit dead a the time, I dont know if I will be posting so often.
Other things that are not related to the project
I switched to arch btw
And I am finally comfortable with neovim :D
AI on the pico!!
AI chat app is working!! 
What I did:
- Made the ui (pretty simple)
- Added a keyboard for input
- made some placehgolder functions to send promt and receive them
What AI did for me
- all the api connection logic (The Mistral.h file)
It was too complicated for me XD…
How I did it:
- I used the mistral API
- made a simle app on the picolator for it
- thats it )
What I will do next ->
- make so you can enter your own api key (without recompiling)
- make so u can scroll through long responses
Next ideas for the project…
- redisign some parts of the ui (I dont like that headings take up so much space)
- make a paint app
- ?
Devlog ig
Well this two hours I been trying to make an AI chat app. Meanwhile, I realized, that my custom log system kinda sucks, so I will be just using the classic Serial output for logging, and completly remove my custom logger.
Problems with the logger
- logs are hard to read (very small)
- if u enable the log display feature, the rendering gets slower
- gives no errors, I only know at witch step the program stopped
- uses much RAM
with serial logging, all of this issues will be fixed. And I can finally see what error it throws! although it doesnt tell much in the error… terminate called after throwing an instance of 'std::out_of_range'
what():
And sorry for the long break… I will try to code more now!
This project was vetted by Shipwrights and is now up for voting. You can ship again after making more updates.
Feedback
Everything seems in order, approved!
Shipwright walkthrough
This needs changes before we can consider it shipped. Review the Shipwright feedback, make updates, then ship again.
Feedback
Hii,
A significant portion of your devlogs seem to be Ai generated. Please rewrite them in your own language and resubmit.
Shipwright walkthrough
pico-Stardance :P
Tried rendering the stardance logo on the Picolator )
I actually wanted to work on the AI chat app, but instead of locking in, I just procrastineted and made this :3
But a least it looks cool XD
Btw it took me so long, because I am trying to learn vim, and I am not really good at it )
Well ig see u next devlog
picoFETCH
ig its working )
I added a simple fetch app, simmular to neofetch )
It displays:
- the board name (on compilation)
- chip name
- clock speed
- free RAM (not prezise)
- SDK version
- chip id
- WiFi connection status
btw this all runs on a simple rpi pico 2w with a diplay )
check out my other devlogs to see what this thing can do
Its been very long time… But,
I made some progress on the WiFi-settings!
By progress I mean only the working ui XD. (and keyboard 
)
EVERYTHING ELSE JUST DOESNT WORK
a list of things, that need to be fixed:
- storage sucks
- wifi sucks
- ui sucks (it just looks bad)
I will bet trying to fix all of these things in future devlogs so follow along )
Pico-keyboard ?!
So i coded the first simple version of a keyboard for the Picolator…
for now, I will use it for the AI chat app (also in development), and for the Wifi configuration. Its currently in development, but in the next devlog I am planning to finish the wifi connection!
btw credits to @eceWire, I was inspired by the keyboard in his project. ))
Ship #1
The first release )
I finished the demo version of the project! Now I am ready to ship )
features in this release
- UI system (with theming support)
- first game (picodino)
- Settings menu (with modular feature support)
- custom renderer (built on top of the waveshare library, supports blendmodes)
- custom input system
the release:
7 HOURS GONE. WEBSITE DONE (almost).
Well time flies much faster when making websites…
finished the feature menu
I added a feature menu to control the feature manager and toggle features on and off )
- I also kinda broke the display of the picolator… and thats why -
new displays are coming soon (well I think so) - I am building a second Picolator! (And repairing the old one)
almost forgot the website link 😅: https://fedi41-prog.github.io/picolator2/
Demo website
working on the demo website for my PICOLATOR project
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SHIPPING SOON
.
PICOLATOR v2.1 is ready for ship! I just need to finish this small website, and I’m done!
I’ll also continue working at this after the ship :)
Btw here is the link: https://fedi41-prog.github.io/picolator2/
PICO-DINO just jumped on a cactus 😭😭
…the PicoDino tries to jump over the EVIL CACTUS, but he lands perfectly on it!
RIP PicoDino 🪦🦖
.
.
.
But…
Cactus collision is working! 😎
Finally, the dino can’t go through cacti anymore!
Today, I implemented the mask collision )
P.S. - I finally figured out how to add multiple photos 😅
RAM Optimization
The pico was sometimes crashing, after I spammed the log, so I got into optimising )
Before, i had 2 screen buffers, and even a third one for blending them (no wonder it crashed XD)
So I just removed all the unnesecary buffers )
btw blend modes are still working!
the first game!
I just started working on the first game for the picolator!
Feature system ready!
The Picolator can now run different feature modules for debugging and trolling!
Next up …. Dino runner!
Btw my rng number is crazy (3) :
stardance rng day 6
🎲 3 · ranked #500 so far
https://stardance.hackclub.com/rng
Input system fixed
Today I fixed the input system, so it responds faster, and supports more features. One important function I added is the justPressed function, it only returns true, when thw button was pressed exactly in this tick
I also started working on the feature manager, it will have different featues like on screen log display, and other useful stuff.
C++ compiler exploding because of one missing semicolon 💀
The Tailwind theme is working!!! Currently each theme has 3 Tailwind pallets - surface, primary, and secondary.
P.S. - It looks much better irl
coded a buggy tailwind theme generator (some colors are to bright, others to dark 😭😭😭)
The Main screen is ready! And themes are working. (this is just a test theme ik it looks terrible)
Fixed the Font rendering!
New features ->
- font scaling -> now you can scale fonts!
Coming up ->
- rethinking the Font system
- changing the ugly Waveshare font to something different (:
Remaking the font rendering (and failing)
Ahhh why did I spent some mucb time on this…. (added a UiDraw class, and redisigned the structure)
Alpha support added! (And other technical changes)
Building the basic app structure! And a quick display demo.
Created a TestApp for different tests )
Created a Display class for rendering and drawing. (just a wrapper for a C library).
Next I am going to work on the UI logic.
Finally got it running on cpp! (Yes i gave up on learning c)
So I somehow got the display test working… I already hate C (edit - no! C is cool [: )
setting up the project!
