My Eddie needs HELP!!!

LD

I've been assembling my Eddie one piece at a time over the years.playing around with it when I can in between work. overtime work at home Etc.I have Eddie assembled and I believe wired correctly but ??? I have MRDS installed With other components. I keep getting 52 warnings when building samples and suppose this needs attention first But what do I need to change??? next I have connected Eddie and tried Eddie at the Dss command prompt and I get "eddie is not recognized as an internal or external command,operable program or batch file." When I look in "samples/platforms/Reference platforms2011. I don't see a file called Eddie. I do have an "Eddiefirmware-2011-09-07.Which I used to download into The Eddie boards Epprom. when I installed that and tried it through Parallaxs software running "Eddie with 29321 encoder" and using Parallax serial terminal, I can get ver of 000D like I should. Can anyone point me in the direction of where to go from here?? hey I'm 61 and a novice at all this really.but enjoy the time I can on this hobby.But would like to see Eddie Autonomously Run around as in the follow me robot before my time is UP..

Duane Degn

I haven't used MRDS myself but I've spent a lot of time with the Eddie firmware.
I added an integral component to the code so a robot using the new firmware should arrive closer to its target destination than it would using the earlier firmware.
I don't have an Eddie control board but I tested my robot with a h-bridge and I thought it worked pretty well. There's a video showing the robot navigation using the new firmware with a h-bridge embedded in the following post.
http://forums.parallax.com/discussion/comment/1308235/#Comment_1308235
The latest firmware is available from my GitHub repository. The instructions concerning which file to download are located in the repository's ReadMe document but I'll tell you which file you need anyway. The firmware to use with an Eddie control board is archived in the file "Eddie - Archive [Date ....zip".
Here's a direct link to the .zip archive:https://github.com/ddegn/EddieFirmware/blob/master/Eddie - Archive [Date 2015.01.01 Time 20.21].zip

IIRC, there are lots of comments at the top of the top object. The new firmware should be backwards compatible but I haven't tested it with an Eddie board.
I added some commands to make the firmware easier to use with a terminal program. If you want to switch the number system from hex to base 10 numbers, you can use the command "DECIN 1". This only changes the way the firmware receives numbers. To get the firmware to output base 10 numbers rather than hex you need to give the command "DECOUT 1". I found it a lot easier to use base 10 numbers while testing my robot.
I was originally just adapting the firmware for use with the Propeller Activity Board and HB-25 motor controllers but I thought some of the changes I made were worth adding to the original Eddie hardware version.
Besides adding an integral component to the motor control algorithm, I also added an "ARC" command which allows the robot to drive in arcs. Along with the ARC command I added a "PATH" command which allows one to enter the distance the individual wheels travel. This is pretty much the same same thing as the ARC command but using different input parameters.
To make it easier to input distances, I added a "MM" command which instead of encoder ticks for distance the units are in millimeters.
I changed the way the Ping sensors were read to reduce interference from multiple sensors.

I also added a "SERVO" command. This lets one easily add servos to the robot.
Sorry I can't help with the MRDS part but I'll be glad to try to help with any firmware issues. Again, I haven't tested my version of the firmware with an Eddie control board. Make sure you keep a copy of the original firmware handy in case my modified version doesn't work as expected.

LD

Thanks Duane,
Still working on Microsoft Robotics Studio trying to get it up and running..May take me a Very long time.Did watch your video and can't wait to see mine roaming..

NWCCTV

It's been a while since I worked with MSRS but IIRC you need to do a build all before doing anything. There's a couple books out that are a huge help. I will see if I can find them and post a link.

Duane Degn

NWCCTV wrote: »

There's a couple books out that are a huge help. I will see if I can find them and post a link.

Andy, if you find links to those books I hope you let us know. I'm curious about MSRS myself.

Thanks.

Publison

Isn't MSRS pretty much dead? From what I can see there has not been and update since 2012.

The push came in 2011:

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/usisvde/archive/2011/09/24/presenting-microsoft-s-new-robotics-reference-platform-eddie-at-maker-faire-new-york-sept-17-18.aspx

I was there for the rollout.

jdolecki

Microsoft released a statement that its Robotics group was shutting down. Here is a article about it.

http://spectrum.ieee.org/automaton/robotics/robotics-software/microsoft-shuts-down-its-robotics-group

erco

That's curious news, I had not heard that. I think many of us were leery of RDS and letting Microsoft own everything we develop in perpetuity. I suspect MS is paying the price for that lopsided relationship now.
But don't fret. Mario has revamped LMR with pretty much the same self-serving agreement and TOS now.

GordonMcComb

I'm not sure how much of other people's IP Microsoft was grabbing with RDS, but IMO it was their research model that failed them. They were going after segments that were already well traveled. iRobot, Willow Garage, and many others had already blazed those same trails. The program lacked a vision in how the technology could be successfully commercialized into desirable and worthwhile products.

If you look at the current go-to fields in robotics, it's now things like driverless cars (or at least sensors to make human driven cars more safe), wheeled and non-wheeled robots with a specific purpose (e.g., Jeff Bezos' package delivery drones; yeah, go ahead and chuckle, but he's got the cash to invest), and assistive robotic mechanisms to help disabled people live better lives.

In addition to RDS as a programming platform, Microsoft should have been much more active in capitalizing/funding the most promising ideas. Not talking "contests" here, but the same kind of process that crowdfunding now serves. While MS was trying to get people to use RDS to drive a LEGO bot, Google was quietly buying up robotics labs, and investing hundreds of millions in driverless car research. So as it currently stands, it's Google:7, Microsoft: A big fat 0.

RDS still serves as a viable (though deprecated) platform for robots like Eddie, but it's just as viable to use something else.

NWCCTV

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/p/professional-microsoft-robotics-developer-studio-kyle-johns/1101192956/2671927786698?st=PLA&sid=BNB_DRS_Marketplace+Shopping+Textbooks_00000000&2sid=Google_&sourceId=PLGoP20436&k_clickid=3x20436&kpid=2671927786698

and

http://www.ebay.com/itm/like/131252436962?ul_noapp=true&chn=ps&lpid=82


I have both and they definitely helped back when I was working with MSRS. It took a LOT of doing but I was finally able to get MSRS to control my BoeBot. Way more than I really wanted to have to do, especially since MS dropped support for it.