The software below will need to be installed on your notebook computer or desktop computer. This page was updated 1/9/2025.
If your computer can not run the suggested software you can try using the Desktop UArizona at https://arizona.apporto.com/.
We will create:
Unix type shell
Make sure OnShape works for Mechanical Design
Eagle CAD for Electrical Design
Python with Visual Studio Code.
Operating system is based on BSD Unix whcih already includes a shell.
You can complete this assignment on your Raspberry Pi. It already includes a shell.
There are many ways to run Unix commands on windows.
Select one of the following (DO NOT INSTALL ALL OF THEM):
Option 1) RECOMMENDED MSYS2. https://www.msys2.org/
Follow the installation instructions on the msys2 website.
OPTIONAL: Add msys to your search path:
Obtain "Rapid Environment Editor" and run it (https://www.rapidee.com/en/download)
Under File "Restart as Administrator".
CAUTION: If you "accidentally" delete or modify entries, your system might no longer work.
Under System Variables Find and Select Path=...
Add Value "Insert Directory Path", navigate to or type C:\msys64\usr\bin
Move Down the new value so its at the end of the current path.
Option 2) Use Git Bash
Option 3) Linux Subsystem for Windows 10 (https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/wsl/install)
Option 4) Use Linux in virtual machine Oracle VirtualBox https://www.virtualbox.org. First you will need to install Virtual Box, then you need to boot it with Ubuntu which you obtain froim https://ubuntu.com/download/desktop. An iso file is the content of a CD or DVD and in Virtual box you can attach a virtual disk player to the virtual computer.
You will want to have python installed on your computer.
IF YOU ALREADY HAVE WORKING PYTHON INSTALLATION FROM BME 225 DO NOT INSTALL AN OTHER VERSION.
Having multiple python versions installed makes it difficult to update and install packages.
Windows installation packages are here: https://www.python.org/downloads/ . If you have 64bit OS use 64 bit version. If you do not know what you have google how to check for it. This will install the official CPython installation. For iOS use https://www.python.org/downloads/mac-osx/ . Likely iOS already has python installed.
As next step update pip. Pip is a python script to extend the python functionality: open a terminal, shell, powershell or a CMD window. Execute following commands while your computers is connected to the internet.
On windows in powershell or CMD:
py -3 -m pip install --upgrade pip
Python is a part of the operating system and you should not change it.
Open a Terminal
python3 -m pip install --upgrade pip
If the above did not work and you are NOT using a MAC you can try to bootstrap pip with:
curl https://bootstrap.pypa.io/get-pip.py -o get-pip.py This will download the install script.
python3 get-pip.py
Now you should have latest version of pip on your computer. Pip does not run inside python. It runs in your shell like an application.
If the above did not work and you have a MAC Computer:
MAC OS has homebrew that can install python packages also. To get brew working you need top open terminal and:
/bin/bash -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/HEAD/install.sh)"
It will ask for password which is your user password on your MAC. After installation is completed it lists two lines that you need to execte for the installation to work. They are listed in the terminal towards the end of the displayed text. Execute one line at a time.
Now you should be able to use brew to install packages with for example:
brew install opencv
An alternative on the MAC is to use anaconda instead of basic python installation. Anaconda can also be run with Visual Studio Code. It has better package support than pip.
Python, like Matlab, has many extension packages and we will want the following extension installed:
numpy or numpy+mkl
opencv-contrib-python
pandas
scipy
sympy
matplotlib
pandas
wave
pyqtgraph
Option 1: We can install packages from the python repository using pip. This is easiest.
Option 2: We can install packages for Anaconda (BME 225).
The general syntax for installing a python package is
pip3 install numpy
or
python3 -m pip install numpy
or on Windows
py -3 -m pip install numpy
If you don't know how to install packages read https://docs.anaconda.com/free/anaconda/packages/install-packages/.
After you installed all the packages listed above you can test them:
py or py -3 or on Mac or Linux shell python3
Once the above command completed, python has started and in python command prompt enter
import numpy
numpy.__version__
exit()
There should be a display about the numpy version you have available and no error should be displayed. You can also import cv2 (opencv), pandas, scipy, sympy, matplotlib, pandas, wave, and pyqtgraph the same way.
Visual Studio Code is the standard to create programs. Code is developed as open source software by Microsoft.
Download the installation package from https://code.visualstudio.com/ and install inside the application the python development package from Microsoft. Since you already have python installed it should find the interpreter.
Visual Studio Code is not the same as Visual Studio. Visual Studio Code does not consume a lot of resources. A scaled back version runs on the raspberry pi. Visual Studio Code is a stand alone application.
When you start Visual Studio Code it will recognize that you have a Python Environment and it will recommend installing the extension packages Python IntelliSense and Pylance from Microsoft.
We will be using OnShape and InkScape to produce instructions for our laser cutter and to model our designs.
Please obtain and install a copy of InkScape. InkScape is free-ware and can be obtained here: https://inkscape.org/ . Adobe Illustrator is an alternative but is not freeware. We will use OnShape to create 2D drawings which will need to be edited using InkScape before sending them to the laser cutter. You can also use InkScape for quick designs of plates with holes. There are also good plugins to create gears and boxes: http://www.instructables.com/id/The-Ultimate-Guide-to-Laser-cut-Box-Generators/
For OnShape please create an academic account here: https://www.onshape.com/en/education/ . Once you have an account you can start using it in your browser with https://cad.onshape.com/signin . To get an estimate on the performance of your webbrowser handling OnShape run this test: https://cad.onshape.com/check .
The maker community has been using Eagle CAD or KiCAD to design electronics boards. For Eagle CAD there is a free version available but since Eagle is owned by Autodesk now its no longer maintained. KiCAD is open source. Sometime in near future I will move to KiCAD. Please download the freeware version using following instructions https://www.autodesk.com/products/eagle/blog/how-to-install-autodesk-eagle-on-windows-mac-and-linux/ .
If you are having issues launching Eagle CAD (nothing happens after splashscreen), please refer to the solutions posted on https://www.autodesk.com/support/technical/article/caas/sfdcarticles/sfdcarticles/Eagle-crashes-seconds-after-launching-splash-screen.html