VMX-pi FRC Robot programs run on the “Raspbian” Raspberry Pi Operating System. These steps describe how to prepare a Micro SD Card image running Raspbian to host a FRC Robot program.
Recommendation: Raspbian Buster is the latest and recommended Raspbian Version for use with VMX-pi FRC programming. Raspbian Stretch, which is installed on previous versions of the VMX RTK is also currently supported.
Requirement: If your Raspberry Pi Model is Raspberry 4B, you must use Raspbian Buster. If your Raspberry Pi Model is 3B, 3B+ or Zero W, you may use Raspbian Buster or Raspbian Stretch.
Needed Items:
- PC with microSD Card interface
- microSD Card
- Recommended: 32GB Samsung EVO Plus microSDHC UHS-1
- Minimum: 8GB microSD Card
- VMX-pi assembled with Raspberry Pi
- Power applied to Raspberry Pi (e.g., via VMX-pi AC/DC Adaptor or Battery)
- USB Mouse & Keyboard and HDMI Monitor for Raspberry Pi
Preconfigured VMX FRC Image Creation
- Download the latest VMX_FRC SD Card Image Zip File (approximately 3GB). Download speeds vary; with a fast internet connection this should download in less than 10 minutes.
- Unzip the Zip file to an image (.img) file.
- Deploy the image to your SD Card on a PC using Etcher or another SD Card imaging utility.
- This image is configured with the default user name (“pi”) and password (“raspberry”)
- The VMX FRC SD Card Image file system size is minimized by default. When first running Raspbian from this image, you can expand the file system size to fill the SD Card by running the following command at a Raspbian command-prompt:
sudo raspi-config
From within the raspi-config utility:
- Choose “7 Advanced Options”
- Choose “A1 Expand Filesystem”
- Reboot
NOTE: If you are experienced with Raspberry Pi and desire a customized SD Card Image, you can choose instead the more advanced Manual SD Card Image Creation Process.