In this series of lessons you have learned to send data from Arduino to Python, and then do some pretty cool things in Python. We have created little virtual worlds, and have done neat dynamic graphics. Unfortunately not all Python libraries are as easy to install as vPython and pySerial. Some are next to impossible to install. The good news is that there is a free program called PIP that will install just about any Python library very easily. We need to pause and install PIP. Many of the future lessons will require you to have PIP installed on your machine. Please follow along with me on the video, which shows you how to install PIP on your windows machine. These links will be useful. You can download pip at this link:
https://pip.pypa.io/en/latest/installing.html
Go to the section on PIP install as seen here:
Right mouse click on get-pip.py and download to your desktop. You will then want to run the program in python. We show you how to do this in the video above. Then, you need to edit your system path file by going to the control panel, select system, select advanced settings, and under environmental parameters select the path. Update your path file to show your system where your python folder is and where your python script folder is. If you are unsure of this, watch the video where I show you exactly how to do it. If you are adept with computers, you can just do it from this description. Add the two elements to your path. Adjust the parameters to reflect where your python installation is and where your python script folder is. For me, these are the two things added to my path:
C:\Python27
and
C:\Python27\Scripts
If you do not know exactly what I am saying, then watch the video for more detail.
Once you have these in your system path, you can test your PIP as follows.
Open a CMD box.
Type:
pip install -U pip
This asks pip to update itself. You should see it come up and indicate it is either up to date or is updating. This will tell you that you have the PIP installed correctly.
Your life with Python will now be much easier because your system now knows the path to both your Python program and your PIP installer.