Fwd: [squeak-dev] Squeak, Etoys, Robots and Wiimote

From: "Ricardo Moran" <[hidden email]>

Date: December 30, 2008 8:48:12 PM CEST

To: [hidden email]

Subject: [squeak-dev] Squeak, Etoys, Robots and Wiimote

Reply-To: The general-purpose Squeak developers list <[hidden email]>

Hi, for the past several months we (http://tecnodacta.com.ar/gira/?page_id=9) have been working on making Squeak and Etoys a suitable platform for teaching robotics. We have made some progress and now we have few robotic kits that can be controlled with Etoys. These packages work reasonably well, but they still contain some bugs.

 

SqueakNxt:

SqueakNxt allows the user to control Lego Nxt robots (http://mindstorms.lego.com/) over a Bluetooth serial port. It has an etoy interface and supports the servo motors and also the four basic types of sensors (light, touch, ultrasonic and sound). Currently we only have support for communication with direct commands but we are starting to work on a translator from a subset of smalltalk  to NBC (http://bricxcc.sourceforge.net/nbc/). This will allow to execute Smalltalk programs on the NXT.

You can get SqueakNxt from here: (http://www.squeaksource.com/SqueakNxt.html).

To improve the performance we made a plugin that is available here: (https://sourceforge.net/projects/squeaknxtplugin/).

We have only tested SqueakNxt on Windows but if the SerialPort class works I believe it may work on Linux as well.

 

I-Sobot:

I-Sobot is the world's smallest humanoid robot in production (http://www.isobotrobot.com/eng/). This package allows the user to control the I-Sobot with Etoys using a serial Lego IR Tower.

You can download it from here: "http://www.squeaksource.com/ISobot.html".

You also need the "sapien.dll" file. You can get it from here: "http://www.robotika.sk/mains.php?page=/projects/robsapien/".

 

RoboSapien:

RoboSapien is a toy-like robot designed by Mark Tilden (http://www.wowwee.com/en/products/toys/robots/robotics/robosapiens:robosapien-v2). This package allows the user to control the RoboSapien v2 with Etoys using a serial Lego IR Tower.

You can download it from here: "http://www.squeaksource.com/Sapien.html".

You also need the "sapien.dll" file. You can get it from here: "http://www.robotika.sk/mains.php?page=/projects/robsapien/".

 

RobotSoccer:

This project allows the user to develop robot soccer teams capable to compete in the Fira Simurosot game. Currently it supports only virtual robots, but making it work with real robots may be trivial.

This project is a bit more complex than the abovementioned because it requires the user to program in Smalltalk. Robot Soccer is a complex discipline so we believe Etoys is not good enough to develop highly functional robot soccer teams.

It is available here: "http://www.squeaksource.com/RobotSoccer.html".

You are also going to need the RobotSoccer simulator (http://www.fira.net/soccer/simurosot/R_Soccer_v15a_030204.exe) and the proxy (http://tecnodacta.com.ar/gira/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/proxy.rar). The proxy is a team developed in c++ that uses sockets to interact with any software platform, i.e. Squeak. As the simulator only allows teams developed in Lingo or C++, we need the proxy to link the simulator with Squeak.

We have also a tutorial but it's written in Spanish, in case you are interested here is the link: "http://tecnodacta.com.ar/gira/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/tutorial-de-futbol-de-robots-en-squeak.pdf".

 

SqueakWiimote:

This project is simply a FFI interface to the wiiuse library (http://www.wiiuse.net/). It allows to interact with several Nintendo Wii remotes using Squeak and/or Etoys. Although this project doesn't have anything to do with robots, controlling the robots with the wiimote becomes easy using Etoys. And it's fun!

You can download it from here: "http://www.squeaksource.com/SqueakWiimote.html".

You are also going to need the SqueakWiimote plugin (https://sourceforge.net/projects/squeakwiimotepl/) and the wiiuse library (http://www.wiiuse.net/).