Welcome to the UTK Robotics 2015-2016 SouthEastCon Competition Repository! The code in master represents the latest code run on our competition robot.

All code in Python represents code run on the BeagleBone Black board. The code in torso is to be run on AVR Arudinos or Arduino compatible boards (e.g. Teensy 2). The microcontroller boards handle actual interaction with sensors and motors leaving the BeagleBone Black to do the higher level processing like image recognition. The BBB communicates to the Arduinos over USB. The spine Python code sends encoded messages to the appropriate Arudino for each task.

Here are the steps that will get you coding as fast as possible:

Before jumping in, skim through:

• The competition rules
• Robot overview (wiki)
• Beaglebone (wiki)
• Contributing to Software (wiki)
• Just the wiki in general

These documents will give you all the basic info, as well as information on getting set up with accounts on the Beaglebone.

Once you have connected to the Beaglebone through the instructions provided in Beaglebone, you first need to set up your private/public keypairs, which are not created automatically when your account is set up. In the BBB's shell,

ssh-keygen -t rsa -b 4096 -C "YOUR_GITHUB_EMAIL"

Follow the prompts. The password does not need to be your Github password, and you can choose not to have one. You will now have key files located in ~/.ssh. Now run

cat ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub

And copy the output to your clipboard. Next, follow the steps at https://help.github.com/articles/generating-ssh-keys/#step-4-add-your-ssh-key-to-your-account to add the SSH key to your Github account. You can now

git clone git@github.com:utk-robotics-2016/utk-robotics-2016.git

To get this repository in your home directory. You will be on the master branch by default. As explained in Contributing to Software, feel free to look around in master, but do not commit any changes directly to it. You will make changes in your own branch. Please consult Contributing to Software for instructions on how to do that.

At this point you will want to make sure that the robot is on a SAFE place on the GROUND. Running code can cause the robot to take off when you least expect it. You will not be very popular if you drive the robot off the desk.

Our first step will be to add our code directory to or $PYTHONPATH. First get the directory of your code directory. Example:

corytest@beaglebone:~$ ls
utk-robotics-2016
corytest@beaglebone:~$ cd utk-robotics-2016/
corytest@beaglebone:~/utk-robotics-2016$ ls
circle.yml  dominate.py  head  README.md  research  test.sh  torso  utils
corytest@beaglebone:~/utk-robotics-2016$ pwd
/home/corytest/utk-robotics-2016
corytest@beaglebone:~/utk-robotics-2016$ vim ~/.bashrc

In this example, /home/corytest/utk-robotics-2016 is the directory that you will add to your $PYTHONPATH. At the end of ~/.bashrc, add the following line:

export PYTHONPATH="${PYTHONPATH}:/home/corytest/utk-robotics-2016"

Example:

corytest@beaglebone:~/utk-robotics-2016$ vim ~/.bashrc
<ADD THE LINE AT THE END>
corytest@beaglebone:~/utk-robotics-2016$ source ~/.bashrc

Note that this entire step only needs to be done once. Next time you log in, you will not need to do this.

As stated before, at this point you will want to make sure that the robot is on a SAFE place on the GROUND. Running code can cause the robot to take off when you least expect it. You will not be very popular if you drive the robot off the desk.

Start by placing the robot in the start square with the front of the robot facing towards the blocks.

To run the current competition code, change to the the utk-robotics-2016 directory and execute the following:

python dominate.py

Sometimes it is nice to have an interactive terminal for controlling the robot rather than having to run a script each time. To get a shell for controlling the robot, follow these instructions:

corytest@beaglebone:~$ ipython
Python 2.7.3 (default, Mar 14 2014, 17:55:54)
Type "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.

IPython 3.1.0 -- An enhanced Interactive Python.
?         -> Introduction and overview of IPython's features.
%quickref -> Quick reference.
help      -> Python's own help system.
object?   -> Details about 'object', use 'object??' for extra details.

In [1]: import logging

In [2]: from head.spine.core import Spine

In [3]: fmt = '%(asctime)s.%(msecs)03d - %(name)s - %(levelname)s - %(message)s'

In [4]: logging.basicConfig(format=fmt, level=logging.INFO, datefmt='%I:%M:%S')

In [5]: s = Spine()
07:21:46.325 - head.spine.core - INFO - Connecting to /dev/teensy.
07:21:46.338 - head.spine.core - INFO - Created lock at /var/lock/LCK..teensy.
07:21:46.345 - head.spine.core - INFO - Connecting to /dev/mega.
07:21:46.359 - head.spine.core - INFO - Created lock at /var/lock/LCK..mega.
07:21:46.366 - head.spine.core - INFO - Waiting for connection to stabilize.

In [6]: s.startup() # To check the serial connections

In [7]: # Run any spine command from here

In [8]: s.close() # When you are done, you need to run this to close the serial connections and remove locks
07:22:46.384 - head.spine.core - INFO - Closed serial connection /dev/teensy.
07:22:46.390 - head.spine.core - INFO - Removed lock at /var/lock/LCK..teensy.
07:22:46.400 - head.spine.core - INFO - Closed serial connection /dev/mega.
07:22:46.408 - head.spine.core - INFO - Removed lock at /var/lock/LCK..mega.

In [9]:
Do you really want to exit ([y]/n)? y
corytest@beaglebone:~$