Prior to developing, install dependencies for the virtual environment and activate the environment. General instructions for working with virtualenv can be found in create_envs.txt at the root of the project architecture

To install any dependencies follow the instructions below:

1. construct a blank virtual environment with: virtualenv ./environments/pi_env

2. activate the virtual environment with: source ./environments/pi_env/bin/activate

3. install dependencies with: pip3 install -r requirements.txt --upgrade where the requirements file can be found within the environments folder.

Be sure to update the requirements file after installing any libraries. To update the file follow instructions below:

1. activate the virtual environment with: source ./environments/pi_env/bin/activate

2. save project dependencies: pip3 freeze --local > ./environments/requirements.txt