VROOM32 board set GPIO3 as output- micropython

[mikeabuilder]

I'm new to this forum, and new to ESP32. I have a VROOM32 dev board (30 pins) and I want to use GPIO3 as an output. The board pictures show this pin as either a gpio, or a serial receive pin. The PCB is labelled RX0.

I assume that in micropython, I can configure this pin as an ouput, but when I do, my serial connection to the board locks up. I see this behavior with VSCode and also Thonny.

So my question is whether I should be avle to set GPIO3 as an output in micropython, and how I should do it.

Thanks for any help to this noob.