blog/tags/robot/robot.rss

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   3         <channel>
   4                 <title>Petter Reinholdtsen - Entries tagged robot</title>
   5                 <description>Entries tagged robot</description>
   6                 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/</link>
   7
   8
   9         <item>
  10                 <title>Perl library to control the Spykee robot moved to github</title>
  11                 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Perl_library_to_control_the_Spykee_robot_moved_to_github.html</link>
  12                 <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Perl_library_to_control_the_Spykee_robot_moved_to_github.html</guid>
  13                 <pubDate>Sat, 19 Oct 2013 10:20:00 +0200</pubDate>
  14                 <description>&lt;p&gt;Back in 2010, I created a Perl library to talk to
  15 &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spykee&quot;&gt;the Spykee robot&lt;/a&gt;
  16 (with two belts, wifi, USB and Linux) and made it available from my
  17 web page.  Today I concluded that it should move to a site that is
  18 easier to use to cooperate with others, and moved it to github.  If
  19 you got a Spykee robot, you might want to check out
  20 &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/libspykee-perl&quot;&gt;the
  21 libspykee-perl github repository&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;
  22 </description>
  23         </item>
  24
  25         <item>
  26                 <title>Debian, the Linux distribution of choice for LEGO designers?</title>
  27                 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian__the_Linux_distribution_of_choice_for_LEGO_designers_.html</link>
  28                 <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian__the_Linux_distribution_of_choice_for_LEGO_designers_.html</guid>
  29                 <pubDate>Sat, 11 May 2013 20:30:00 +0200</pubDate>
  30                 <description>&lt;P&gt;In January,
  31 &lt;a href=&quot;http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/New_IRC_channel_for_LEGO_designers_using_Debian.html&quot;&gt;I
  32 announced a&lt;/a&gt; new &lt;a href=&quot;irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-lego&quot;&gt;IRC
  33 channel #debian-lego&lt;/a&gt;, for those of us in the Debian and Linux
  34 community interested in &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.lego.com/&quot;&gt;LEGO&lt;/a&gt;, the
  35 marvellous construction system from Denmark.  We also created
  36 &lt;a href=&quot;http://wiki.debian.org/LegoDesigners&quot;&gt;a wiki page&lt;/a&gt; to have
  37 a place to take notes and write down our plans and hopes.  And several
  38 people showed up to help.  I was very happy to see the effect of my
  39 call.  Since the small start, we have a debtags tag
  40 &lt;a href=&quot;http://debtags.debian.net/search/bytag?wl=hardware::hobby:lego&quot;&gt;hardware::hobby:lego&lt;/a&gt;
  41 tag for LEGO related packages, and now count 10 packages related to
  42 LEGO and &lt;a href=&quot;http://mindstorms.lego.com/&quot;&gt;Mindstorms&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;
  43
  44 &lt;p&gt;&lt;table&gt;
  45 &lt;tr&gt;&lt;td&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://packages.qa.debian.org/brickos&quot;&gt;brickos&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/td&gt;&lt;td&gt;alternative OS for LEGO Mindstorms RCX. Supports development in C/C++&lt;/td&gt;&lt;/tr&gt;
  46 &lt;tr&gt;&lt;td&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://packages.qa.debian.org/leocad&quot;&gt;leocad&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/td&gt;&lt;td&gt;virtual brick CAD software&lt;/td&gt;&lt;/tr&gt;
  47 &lt;tr&gt;&lt;td&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://packages.qa.debian.org/libnxt&quot;&gt;libnxt&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/td&gt;&lt;td&gt;utility library for talking to the LEGO Mindstorms NX&lt;/td&gt;&lt;/tr&gt;
  48 &lt;tr&gt;&lt;td&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://packages.qa.debian.org/lnpd&quot;&gt;lnpd&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/td&gt;&lt;td&gt;daemon for LNP communication with BrickOS&lt;/td&gt;&lt;/tr&gt;
  49 &lt;tr&gt;&lt;td&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://packages.qa.debian.org/nbc&quot;&gt;nbc&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/td&gt;&lt;td&gt;compiler for LEGO Mindstorms NXT bricks&lt;/td&gt;&lt;/tr&gt;
  50 &lt;tr&gt;&lt;td&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://packages.qa.debian.org/nqc&quot;&gt;nqc&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/td&gt;&lt;td&gt;Not Quite C compiler for LEGO Mindstorms RCX&lt;/td&gt;&lt;/tr&gt;
  51 &lt;tr&gt;&lt;td&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://packages.qa.debian.org/python-nxt&quot;&gt;python-nxt&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/td&gt;&lt;td&gt;python driver/interface/wrapper for the Lego Mindstorms NXT robot&lt;/td&gt;&lt;/tr&gt;
  52 &lt;tr&gt;&lt;td&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://packages.qa.debian.org/python-nxt-filer&quot;&gt;python-nxt-filer&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/td&gt;&lt;td&gt;simple GUI to manage files on a LEGO Mindstorms NXT&lt;/td&gt;&lt;/tr&gt;
  53 &lt;tr&gt;&lt;td&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://packages.qa.debian.org/scratch&quot;&gt;scratch&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/td&gt;&lt;td&gt;easy to use programming environment for ages 8 and up&lt;/td&gt;&lt;/tr&gt;
  54 &lt;tr&gt;&lt;td&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://packages.qa.debian.org/t2n&quot;&gt;t2n&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/td&gt;&lt;td&gt;simple command-line tool for Lego NXT&lt;/td&gt;&lt;/tr&gt;
  55 &lt;/table&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
  56
  57 &lt;p&gt;Some of these are available in Wheezy, and all but one are
  58 currently available in Jessie/testing.  leocad is so far only
  59 available in experimental.&lt;/p&gt;
  60
  61 &lt;p&gt;If you care about LEGO in Debian, please join us on IRC and help
  62 adding the rest of the great free software tools available on Linux
  63 for LEGO designers.&lt;/p&gt;
  64 </description>
  65         </item>
  66
  67         <item>
  68                 <title>Moved the pymissile Debian packaging to collab-maint</title>
  69                 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Moved_the_pymissile_Debian_packaging_to_collab_maint.html</link>
  70                 <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Moved_the_pymissile_Debian_packaging_to_collab_maint.html</guid>
  71                 <pubDate>Thu, 10 Jan 2013 20:40:00 +0100</pubDate>
  72                 <description>&lt;p&gt;As part of my investigation on how to improve the support in Debian
  73 for hardware dongles, I dug up my old Mark and Spencer USB Rocket
  74 Launcher and updated the Debian package
  75 &lt;a href=&quot;http://packages.qa.debian.org/pymissile&quot;&gt;pymissile&lt;/a&gt; to make
  76 sure udev will fix the device permissions when it is plugged in.  I
  77 also added a &quot;Modaliases&quot; header to test it in the Debian archive and
  78 hopefully make the package be proposed by jockey in Ubuntu when a user
  79 plug in his rocket launcher.  In the process I moved the source to a
  80 git repository under collab-maint, to make it easier for any DD to
  81 contribute.  &lt;a href=&quot;http://code.google.com/p/pymissile/&quot;&gt;Upstream&lt;/a&gt;
  82 is not very active, but the software still work for me even after five
  83 years of relative silence.  The new git repository is not listed in
  84 the uploaded package yet, because I want to test the other changes a
  85 bit more before I upload the new version.  If you want to check out
  86 the new version with a .desktop file included, visit the
  87 &lt;a href=&quot;http://anonscm.debian.org/gitweb/?p=collab-maint/pymissile.git&quot;&gt;gitweb
  88 view&lt;/a&gt; or use &quot;&lt;tt&gt;git clone
  89 git://anonscm.debian.org/collab-maint/pymissile.git&lt;/tt&gt;&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;
  90 </description>
  91         </item>
  92
  93         <item>
  94                 <title>New IRC channel for LEGO designers using Debian</title>
  95                 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/New_IRC_channel_for_LEGO_designers_using_Debian.html</link>
  96                 <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/New_IRC_channel_for_LEGO_designers_using_Debian.html</guid>
  97                 <pubDate>Wed, 2 Jan 2013 15:40:00 +0100</pubDate>
  98                 <description>&lt;p&gt;During Christmas, I have worked a bit on the Debian support for
  99 &lt;a href=&quot;http://mindstorms.lego.com/en-us/Default.aspx&quot;&gt;LEGO Mindstorm
 100 NXT&lt;/a&gt;.  My son and I have played a bit with my NXT set, and I
 101 discovered I had to build all the tools myself because none were
 102 already in Debian Squeeze.  If Debian support for LEGO is something
 103 you care about, please join me on the IRC channel
 104 &lt;a href=&quot;irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-lego&quot;&gt;#debian-lego&lt;/a&gt; (server
 105 irc.debian.org).  There is a lot that could be done to improve the
 106 Debian support for LEGO designers.  For example both CAD software
 107 and Mindstorm compilers are missing. :)&lt;/p&gt;
 108
 109 &lt;p&gt;Update 2012-01-03: A
 110 &lt;a href=&quot;http://wiki.debian.org/LegoDesigners&quot;&gt;project page&lt;/a&gt;
 111 including links to Lego related packages is now available.&lt;/p&gt;
 112 </description>
 113         </item>
 114
 115         <item>
 116                 <title>First version of a Perl library to control the Spykee robot</title>
 117                 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/First_version_of_a_Perl_library_to_control_the_Spykee_robot.html</link>
 118                 <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/First_version_of_a_Perl_library_to_control_the_Spykee_robot.html</guid>
 119                 <pubDate>Sat, 9 Oct 2010 14:00:00 +0200</pubDate>
 120                 <description>&lt;p&gt;This summer I got the chance to buy cheap Spykee robots, and since
 121 then I have worked on getting Linux software in place to control them.
 122 The firmware for the robot is available from the producer, and using
 123 that source it was trivial to figure out the protocol specification.
 124 I&#39;ve started on a perl library to control it, and made some demo
 125 programs using this perl library to allow one to control the
 126 robots.&lt;/p&gt;
 127
 128 &lt;p&gt;The library is quite functional already, and capable of controlling
 129 the driving, fetching video, uploading MP3s and play them.  There are
 130 a few less important features too.&lt;/p&gt;
 131
 132 &lt;p&gt;Since a few weeks ago, I ran out of time to spend on this project,
 133 but I never got around to releasing the current source.  I decided
 134 today that it was time to do something about it, and uploaded the
 135 source to my Debian package store at people.skolelinux.org.&lt;/p&gt;
 136
 137 &lt;p&gt;Because it was simpler for me, I made a Debian package and
 138 published the source and deb.  If you got a spykee robot, grab the
 139 source or binary package:&lt;/p&gt;
 140
 141 &lt;p&gt;&lt;ul&gt;
 142 &lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://people.skolelinux.org/~pere/debian/packages/lenny/libspykee-perl_0.0.20101009-1.tar.gz&quot;&gt;libspykee-perl_0.0.20101009-1.tar.gz&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;
 143 &lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://people.skolelinux.org/~pere/debian/packages/lenny/libspykee-perl_0.0.20101009-1.dsc&quot;&gt;libspykee-perl_0.0.20101009-1.dsc&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;
 144 &lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://people.skolelinux.org/~pere/debian/packages/lenny/libspykee-perl_0.0.20101009-1_all.deb&quot;&gt;libspykee-perl_0.0.20101009-1_all.deb&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;
 145 &lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
 146
 147 &lt;p&gt;If you are interested in helping out with developing this library,
 148 please let me know.&lt;/p&gt;
 149 </description>
 150         </item>
 151
 152         <item>
 153                 <title>My first perl GUI application - controlling a Spykee robot</title>
 154                 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/My_first_perl_GUI_application___controlling_a_Spykee_robot.html</link>
 155                 <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/My_first_perl_GUI_application___controlling_a_Spykee_robot.html</guid>
 156                 <pubDate>Wed, 1 Sep 2010 21:00:00 +0200</pubDate>
 157                 <description>&lt;p&gt;This evening I made my first Perl GUI application.  The last few
 158 days I have worked on a Perl module for controlling my recently
 159 aquired Spykee robots, and the module is now getting complete enought
 160 that it is possible to use it to control the robot driving at least.
 161 It was now time to figure out how to use it to create some GUI to
 162 allow me to drive the robot around.  I picked PerlQt as I have had
 163 positive experiences with the Qt API before, and spent a few minutes
 164 browsing the web for examples.  Using Qt Designer seemed like a short
 165 cut, so I ended up writing the perl GUI using Qt Designer and
 166 compiling it into a perl program using the puic program from
 167 libqt-perl.  Nothing fancy yet, but it got buttons to connect and
 168 drive around.&lt;/p&gt;
 169
 170 &lt;p&gt;The perl module I have written provide a object oriented API for
 171 controlling the robot.  Here is an small example on how to use it:&lt;/p&gt;
 172
 173 &lt;p&gt;&lt;pre&gt;
 174 use Spykee;
 175 Spykee::discover(sub {$robot{$_[0]} = $_[1]});
 176 my $host = (keys %robot)[0];
 177 my $spykee = Spykee-&gt;new();
 178 $spykee-&gt;contact($host, &quot;admin&quot;, &quot;admin&quot;);
 179 $spykee-&gt;left();
 180 sleep 2;
 181 $spykee-&gt;right();
 182 sleep 2;
 183 $spykee-&gt;forward();
 184 sleep 2;
 185 $spykee-&gt;back();
 186 sleep 2;
 187 $spykee-&gt;stop();
 188 &lt;/pre&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
 189
 190 &lt;p&gt;Thanks to the release of the source of the robot firmware, I could
 191 peek into the implementation at the other end to figure out how to
 192 implement the protocol used by the robot.  I&#39;ve implemented several of
 193 the commands the robot understand, but is still missing the camera
 194 support to make it possible to control the robot from remote.  First I
 195 want to implement support for uploading new firmware and configuring
 196 the wireless network, to make it possible to bootstrap a Spykee robot
 197 without the producers Windows and MacOSX software (I only have Linux,
 198 so I had to ask a friend to come over to get the robot testing
 199 going. :).&lt;/p&gt;
 200
 201 &lt;p&gt;Will release the source to the public soon, but need to figure out
 202 where to make it available first.  I will add a link to
 203 &lt;a href=&quot;http://wiki.nuug.no/grupper/robot/&quot;&gt;the NUUG wiki&lt;/a&gt; for
 204 those that want to check back later to find it.&lt;/p&gt;
 205 </description>
 206         </item>
 207
 208         <item>
 209                 <title>Robot, reis deg...</title>
 210                 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Robot__reis_deg___.html</link>
 211                 <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Robot__reis_deg___.html</guid>
 212                 <pubDate>Sat, 21 Aug 2010 22:10:00 +0200</pubDate>
 213                 <description>&lt;p&gt;I dag fikk jeg endelig tittet litt på mine nyinnkjøpte roboter, og
 214 har brukt noen timer til å google etter interessante referanser og
 215 aktuell kildekode for bruk på Linux.  Det mest lovende så langt er
 216 &lt;a href=&quot;http://ispykee.toyz.org/&quot;&gt;ispykee&lt;/a&gt;, som har en
 217 BSD-lisensiert linux-daemon som står som mellomledd mellom roboter på
 218 lokalnettet og en sentral tjeneste der en iPhone kan koble seg opp for
 219 å fjernstyre roboten.  Linux-daemonen implementerer deler av
 220 protokollen som roboten forstår.  Etter å ha knotet litt med å oppnå
 221 kontakt med roboten (den oppretter et eget ad-hoc wifi-nett, så jeg
 222 måtte gå av mitt vanlige nett for å få kontakt), og kommet frem til at
 223 den lytter på IP-port 9000 og 9001, gikk jeg i gang med å finne ut
 224 hvordan jeg kunne snakke med roboten vha. disse portene.  Robotbiten
 225 av protokollen er publisert av produsenten med GPL-lisens, slik at det
 226 er mulig å se hvordan protokollen fungerer.  Det finnes en java-klient
 227 for Android som så ganske snasen ut, men fant ingen kildekode for
 228 denne.  Derimot hadde iphone-løsningen kildekode, så jeg tok
 229 utgangspunkt i den.&lt;/p&gt;
 230
 231 &lt;p&gt;Daemonen ville i utgangspunktet forsøke å kontakte den sentrale
 232 tjenesten som iphone-programmet kobler seg til.  Jeg skrev dette om
 233 til i stedet å sette opp en nettverkstjeneste på min lokale maskin,
 234 som jeg kan koble meg opp til med telnet og gi kommandoer til roboten
 235 (act, forward, right, left, etc).  Det involverte i praksis å bytte ut
 236 socket()/connect() med socket()/bind()/listen()/accept() for å gjøre
 237 klienten om til en tjener.&lt;/p&gt;
 238
 239 &lt;p&gt;Mens jeg har forsøkt å få roboten til å bevege seg har min samboer
 240 skrudd sammen resten av roboten for å få montert kamera og plastpynten
 241 (armer, plastfiber for lys).  Nå er det hele montert, og roboten er
 242 klar til bruk.  Må få flyttet den over til mitt vanlige trådløsnett
 243 før det blir praktisk, men de bitene av protokollen er ikke
 244 implementert i ispykee-daemonen, så der må jeg enten få tak i en mac
 245 eller en windows-maskin, eller implementere det selv.&lt;/p&gt;
 246
 247 &lt;p&gt;Vi var tre som kjøpte slike roboter, og vi har blitt enige om å
 248 samle notater og referanser på &lt;a
 249 href=&quot;http://wiki.nuug.no/grupper/robot/&quot;&gt;NUUGs wiki&lt;/a&gt;.  Ta en titt
 250 der hvis du er nysgjerrig.&lt;/p&gt;
 251 </description>
 252         </item>
 253
 254         <item>
 255                 <title>2 Spykee-roboter i hus, nå skal det lekes</title>
 256                 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/2_Spykee_roboter_i_hus__n__skal_det_lekes.html</link>
 257                 <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/2_Spykee_roboter_i_hus__n__skal_det_lekes.html</guid>
 258                 <pubDate>Wed, 18 Aug 2010 13:30:00 +0200</pubDate>
 259                 <description>&lt;p&gt;Jeg kjøpte nettopp to
 260 &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.spykee-robot.com/&quot;&gt;Spykee&lt;/a&gt;-roboter, for test og
 261 leking.  Kjøpte to da det var så billige, og gir meg mulighet til å
 262 eksperimentere uten å være veldig redd for å ødelegge alt ved å bytte
 263 ut firmware og slikt.  Oppdaget at lekebutikken på Bryn senter hadde
 264 en liten stabel på lager som de ikke hadde klart å selge ut etter
 265 fjorårets juleinnkjøp, og var villig til å selge for en femtedel av
 266 vanlig pris.  Jeg, Ronny og Jarle har skaffet oss restbeholdningen, og
 267 det blir morsomt å se hva vi får ut av dette.&lt;/p&gt;
 268
 269 &lt;p&gt;Roboten har belter styrt av to motorer, kamera, høytaler, mikrofon
 270 og wifi-tilkobling.  Det hele styrt av en GPL-lisensiert databoks som
 271 jeg mistenker kjører linux.  Firmware-kildekoden ble visst publisert i
 272 mai.  Eneste utfordringen er at kontroller-programvaren kun finnes til
 273 Windows, men det må en kunne jobbe seg rundt når vi har kildekoden til
 274 firmwaren. :)&lt;/p&gt;
 275
 276 &lt;ul&gt;
 277 &lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spykee&quot;&gt;Wikipedia-oppføring&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;
 278 &lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.spykeeworld.com/spykee/US/freeSoftware.html&quot;&gt;Nedlasting av firmware-kilden&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;
 279 &lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://wiki.nuug.no/grupper/robot&quot;&gt;prosjektwiki hos NUUG&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;
 280 &lt;/ul&gt;
 281 </description>
 282         </item>
 283
 284         </channel>
 285 </rss>