Exercise A: Blinky

~15 min

Goal

Get an LED blinking on the uFerris board by finding and adapting an existing example from the esp-hal documentation.

Steps

1. Create a New Project

esp-generate --chip esp32c3 -o unstable-hal -o vscode -o esp-backtrace -o log --headless gpio_blinky
cd gpio_blinky

2. Find the Example

Navigate to the esp-hal GPIO documentation.

Look for a blinky example — check:

• The module-level documentation (esp_hal::gpio)
• The Output struct page
• The esp-hal examples directory on GitHub

3. Apply the Mental Model

Read the example and identify:

• Instantiate — How is the Output created? What arguments does it take?
• Configure — What configuration is applied? (Level, OutputConfig)
• Control — What method is used to change the LED state?

4. Adapt to uFerris

• Check your pinout card for the LED pin on the uFerris board
• Update the GPIO pin in the example to match
• Make sure the initial level matches your hardware (active high or active low?)

5. Build and Flash

cargo build --release
espflash flash target/riscv32imc-unknown-none-elf/release/blinky --monitor

Verify: the LED should blink at a steady rate.

What to Notice

• The Output::new() call combines Instantiate and Configure in one statement
• Look at what other methods Output provides besides the one used in the example