PROS (VEX V5)

PROS is an open-source alternative operating system and kernel for the VEX V5 Brain, developed in C and C++ for building robot programs.

Made by Purdue ACM SIGBots, United States (checked on github.com/purduesigbots (opens in a new tab)).

Licenses

Code: MPL-2.0 (opens in a new tab)
Read by Robotheca from LICENSE (opens in a new tab) (MPL-2.0) at commit c0897ad (opens in a new tab), on 16 Oct 2026.
Commercial use: Unknown

It needs closed parts under their own terms: read them before any commercial use.

One part it needs is closed

Needs VEX V5 SDK: The README says the PROS kernel depends on VEX's proprietary Software Development Kit, which is not publicly available.

Runs code on bare metal on the V5 microcontroller, built with the GCC toolchain.
Supports standard C and C++ practices, including structures, pointers, dynamic memory allocation, and function pointers.
Supports C++ officially in versions 3.x and 4.x, with some C++ I/O features still in progress.
Version 4 reduces the base kernel size and adds utilities such as a base device class and liblvgl.
Developers can work on Windows, OS X, or Linux, with a command line interface and a VS Code plugin available.
Documentation and tutorials are hosted on a doxygen site and a separate repository.

Written by Robotheca from the project's README (opens in a new tab) at commit c0897ad.

Difficulty: Intermediate
Hardware it needs, as the project states it: The kernel targets the VEX V5 Brain. Building the kernel requires VEX's proprietary Software Development Kit, which is not publicly available. Development runs on Windows, OS X, or Linux.
How to start: The project's website (opens in a new tab)

Checked on GitHub on 16 Oct 2026.

No robot on Robotheca is linked to it yet. Links come from a robot's robot.yaml, from its dependency files read as text, or from Robotheca's editors.

Robotheca lists software as a reference: nothing is hosted or run here, and every fact links to where it was read.