Initial Thoughts/Suggestions/Questions

[Sara Willner-Giwerc]

Overall Thoughts:

I love the idea of a cloud based drag and drop platform for LEGO EV3. Not only is it more intuitive for students, but it is more intuitive for teachers as well which will go a long way. Students can work anywhere they have internet access and do not have to worry about having their files saved on multiple machines, another huge plus. 

Suggestions:

- Add single motor control capability: 

- Right now Open Roberta is geared almost exclusively toward robotic vehicles.

- Motors can only be controlled via "Driving" and "Turning" commands.

- Adding individual motor control would enable students to do even more with Open Roberta and control robots that serve a variety of purposes. 

- I would also like to see an "Annotation" or comments feature where students can get in the habit of explaining their program as they go.  

- The robot configuration is relatively clear except for the motor selections:

- Creating a way to alert students if they have not assigned left/right would help clear up confusion.

- Also a test system to see what the direction of rotation is would be good.

- Dual Cancelation: You can easily stop a program mid-run by hitting the back button on the EV3 brick but this does not terminate the program on the Open-Roberta Lab. Creating a way to terminate the program on both the computer and the EV3 brick would be nice instead of having to disconnect and reconnect when a program goes wrong.  

- It would be cool if the section of the program that was running was highlighted on the screen as the action was being taken. 

- I'd like to see a direct link to the wiki pages for setup, basic usage, and example programs right in the Open Roberta Lab.

- It would be especially convenient to have a few example programs that you can open up right away in Open Roberta Lab. 

- Animations are great, as are the instructions. It would be great if all the animations were in english and not German though (it seemed to be mostly english but a handful were still in German). 

- The example programs are also a great addition. 

- One of the example programs is for driving in a square and then a later example mentions you can make driving in a square a function, but does not explain how. Adding an explanation on how to save programs add functions would be good.

- Example programs are clear with the pictures and explanations, but it would be good if there was a way to access the example program files right from the Open Roberta Lab. 

Questions:

1) When I run a program, there is about 20second lag time from hitting play to the program start. First this screen that says "NEPO" comes up, and then the screen is blank, and then the program runs, is this a necessary evil or can we speed it up? 

2) Can multiple people log in to one account at the same time (a teacher creates an account for their entire class to use)? Would every student need his/her own account to create and save programs?

All this feedback with images and a program I wrote are available at this link: https://sites.google.com/site/openrobertafeedback/

[Chris Xenyo]

These where the same toughts I had. Single Motor controll would be essential for students and bigger projects. Also canceling of the programm is a main task while programming and testing a new robot.
It would be also nice if you could add the sensors from the NXT which are recogniced by the EV3 (for example the colour-sensor with LED controll).
Besides these things I'm very happy with it ;)

I'm looking forward for the next updates - with some new functions I can eventually programm my huge EV3-Delta-Robot with 4 motors!

[Roberta Roboter]

Thank you very much for your Feedback! Please find the answers below:

Single motor control capability:

It is already available, but within this release you have to sign in resp. 

1. create an account (menu: user)
   
2. then choose the expert mode (menu: edit)
   
3. then additional blocks in action are available
   

--> with the next release now sign in will be necessary anymore

Adding comments:

--> Its already possible if your cursor is over a NEPO block right-click then you can choose "add comment"

Robot configuration

--> With the next release we are planning to add a alert functionality

Creating a way to terminate the program

--> This will take longer because therefore we have to redesign our communication architecture - but we are working on that as well

Questions:

1) When I run a program, there is about 20 second lag time from hitting play to the program start. First this screen that says "NEPO" comes up, and then the screen is blank, and then the program runs, is this a necessary evil or can we speed it up?

--> unfortunately this is necessary evil... this is due to the fact that we are using a java virtual machine which comes with leJOS

2) Can multiple people log in to one account at the same time (a teacher creates an account for their entire class to use)? Would every student need his/her own account to create and save programs?

--> with the next release user programms can be shared with other users and we are also working on a classroom solution for teachers...

Best

 Thorsten

[Lars Schunke]

> Adding comments:
> --> Its already possible if your cursor is over a NEPO block right-click then you can
> choose "add comment"

Maybe a "Comment Block" or a freely placeable "Text Field" might be more apparent.

BTW, right-click doesn't work on touch screens.

[Roberta Roboter]

thx.  both are good ideas and would also work better with tablets.

[Jetro de Château]

I'd prefer the comment block option or a text field that needs to be (can be) connected to a specific block. Free text fields are dangerous in the sense that if you make any changes in your code (add or remove blocks) the text field no longer appears next to the block(s) it explains.

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