Ideas for robotics and/or digital electronics from 5/29

[Jan]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DARPA_Grand_Challenge#2007_Urban_Challenge

http://www.modk.it/

http://shop.moderndevice.com/products/rbbb-kit

http://www.trossenrobotics.com/c/arduino-robotics.aspx

http://www.seeedstudio.com/depot/

http://www.amazon.com/Arduino-Robotics-John-David-Warren/dp/1430231831

http://www.pololu.com/

http://www.instructables.com/id/Open-Manufacturing-How-to-Build-30-SERB-Kits/

http://www.instructables.com/id/Little-Tank-ArduinoPicaxeTamiya-platform-las/

http://4volt.com/Projects/Jansen/

http://robotgrrl.com/blog/

http://blog.makezine.com/2008/11/25/twitchie-scorpion/

http://www.sparkfun.com/products/8880

http://www.cs.uml.edu/~fredm/

Yanco, H. A., Kim, H. J., Martin, F. G., and Silka, L. “Artbotics: Combining Art and Robotics to Broaden Participation in Computing.” In Proceedings of the AAAI Spring Symposium on Robots and Robot Venues: Resources for AI Education, Stanford, CA, March 2007. PDF local PDF.

Martin, F. (2007). “Real Robots Don't Drive Straight.” In Proceedings of the AAAI Spring Symposium on Robots and Robot Venues: Resources for AI Education, Stanford, CA, March 2007. PDF.

Martin, F., Kim, H., Silka, L., Yanco, H., and Coluntino, D. (2007). “Artbotics: Challenges and Opportunities for Multi-Disciplinary, Community-Based Learning in Computer Science, Robotics, and Art.” Presented at the 2007 Workshop on Research in Robots for Education at the Robotics Science and Systems conference, June 30, 2007. PDF. p>

"internet of things"

nest thermostat

1. get github account

2. tell matt what it is

3. add this stuff to the craftoe wiki

[Jan]

and also:

http://seaside.citilab.eu/

[Jan]

We may also want to check out:

• http://code.google.com/p/modkit-community-edition/downloads/list
• http://blog.ardublock.com/
  
• http://blog.minibloq.org/p/donwload.html
  
• http://www.openelectrons.com/index.php?module=pagemaster&PAGE_user_op=view_page&PAGE_id=7
• http://letsmakerobots.com/collected/robot

[Danny Barnes]

I have gone through all of these and so far my favorite is Ardublock. It is just a plugin to the Arduino IDE and is opened from there. You drag and drop items using it and then "upload" the code which just sends it to the Arduino IDE where you can view it in code.

 

I do also like Minibloq although some of the icons are not intuitive and they are all a little bulky. I do like that the code is viewable alongside the icons and is updated in real-time even though the text code is not editable.

 

I can't get modkit to work for me right now but maybe I can find out why later. I don't really like S4A all that much now that I have worked with it (it is very limited, rather slow, and includes several commands that have no relevance to a physical Arduino device (I believe those are for a virtual mode). Also, S4A has some non-intuitive features as well (such as how to upload code) (I searched for several minutes before finding the green flag and figuring out that you have to click the code after the green flag).

 

Well, that's all I have for now. It is now dinner time.

[Danny Barnes]

http://code.google.com/p/modkit-community-edition/

 

According to this link, modkit is only available via a browser and the application is only to send programs to the Arduino "without additional user intervention." So I think that modkit is a no go for now at the very least.

[Matt Jadud]

Hi Danny,

I think what they mean is that the current version of Modkit runs in
the browser as a Javascript app, and there is a small app that you run
natively (a stripped down version of the Arduino IDE, it seems) that
handles the local communication between the browser and the physical
hardware.

Does that make sense? Or, if you prefer, could you explain why you
think it is a no go?

(They plan a desktop version for later this summer, so killing
yourself to make this work doesn't make sense... but, it shouldn't be
too hard... I don't think.)

Cheers,
Matt

[Danny Barnes]

Hey Matt,

 

I meant that it is a no go until I have access to the browser version which is supposedly released tomorrow to project backers (I believe you said that you backed them but then I would still need to wait until I get the access instructions from you).

 

Actually, as I was typing this I found out that there is a link to an "older version" that I can access (cleverly hidden right below the "available now on kickstarter" button... sadly no IE support though :(

[Sebastian Dziallas]

This page has more details: http://www.modk.it/download

I've used the desktop widget together with an Arduino UNO and Firefox
before, but things should be evolving now that the Kickstarter has
actually been funded...

--s

[Danny Barnes]

Given my time messing around with these environments, my recommendation is for ArduBlock. The web version of modkit that I have access to does not have variables unless you are in the alpha club. Talking to Jan, I don't think Modkit will be ready in the time-frame that we will be working on the robotics curriculum and ArduBlock works reasonably well enough anyway. Some notes that are important are that you should always save the file before clicking the close button... there is no check to be sure that you have saved it. You should also be sure to save it in the ArduBlock window instead of the Arduino IDE window because you can't load written code into ArduBlock, you can only load the ArduBlock files.