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Coding the Rimac Nevera and its Time Attack Controller

What CircuitBlocks does to the Nevera and its Time Attack Controller, and how to restore the car's stock driving behaviour.

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Written by Albert Gajsak

The Nevera and its Time Attack Controller are both supported devices in CircuitBlocks, our block-based coding environment at code.circuitmess.com. You code them one at a time: connect whichever one you want to program to your computer and choose it as your device. The controller is listed under the name Nevera Controller.

There is one consequence that matters more on the Nevera than on our other kits, and it is worth knowing before you start. To run your own code on a device, CircuitBlocks erases that device's flash memory and writes MicroPython over the firmware the kit shipped with. On the Nevera, that stock firmware is what makes the car drive out of the box, so pairing by touchpad, steering from the joystick and Boost Mode all stop working once it has been overwritten.

To get the car back to normal, use Restore firmware in CircuitBlocks. It drives from the Time Attack Controller again exactly as it did before, and nothing you have written is lost, because your sketches are saved to your CircuitBlocks account rather than to the car.

Between those two states, the car will not drive on its own. A program you run from CircuitBlocks is held in the device's memory and clears when the device is reset or switched off, so a Nevera set up for CircuitBlocks stays still after a power cycle until you connect it and press Run again. This is how the tool is designed to work rather than a fault, and it is covered in Why doesn't the program I wrote in CircuitBlocks stay on the device after a reset?

What you write in CircuitBlocks is MicroPython, on the Nevera as on every other device it supports. If you would rather type than drag blocks, Code mode gives you the same program as editable MicroPython. Working in C++ is a different route: the firmware the Nevera ships with is an ESP-IDF C++ project, which is the advanced path rather than the beginner one. See What programming languages can I use with CircuitMess kits? for both routes.

CircuitBlocks reaches the car through your browser's serial connection, so it needs a desktop Chromium browser: Chrome, Edge or Opera. Safari, Firefox, phones and tablets cannot connect to the hardware at all.

If the car will not respond to the controller and Restore firmware does not fix it, message us here, or email [email protected], and tell us which of the two devices you last connected.

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