Alvik.begin() causes Alvik to become unresponsive

Using Arduino Interfacing w/ Software on the Computer
1

I'm running a class with 13 Alviks. One has died after little more than 2 hours. I've reinstalled the firmware more than once, but after that, as soon as alvik.begin() has been run, it becomes unresponsive. If I run a program from file, like, say leds_setting.py, I see the cute animations, then all I see is:

MicroPython v1.24.0 on 2024-10-25; Arduino Nano ESP32 with ESP32S3
Type "help()" for more information.

raw REPL; CTRL-B to exit
[]

where [] is the square cursor box. If I click inside the box, it goes white, but I can't type anything, and after a while it goes back to black. There is just one LED lit, the DL2 is green.

Any ideas? Like I said, I've reinstalled the nano firmware a number of times.

2

Sounds like a power supply problem. Perhaps the motors are turned on and the supply voltage drops to the point that the MCU cannot function.

3

Nope. It turns out, after a lot of poor communication with Arduino, that MicroPython 1.24, as installed on my off-the-shelf new Alvik, causes problems. Downgrading to 1.22 solved them. I'm astonished that such an odd problem was software, but there you go. I'm also astonished that this was not picked up during the manufacturing process. Anyway, I'm working again, hopefully for a bit longer this time.