Arduino programming help offer
Hi All, I am new to robotics but have been doing a lot of arduino programming for systems that do not roll around. I recently purchased a parallax Stingray and joined this forum. I had many questions and everybody has been a terrific help answering them.
In turn I would like to offer help, if you need it, for arduino programming. I want to return the favor so to speak.
I will not write all the code for your project, I will offer advice and code examples and maybe demo programs if I can.
Between my day job and my stingray project I will do my best to answer your questions in a timely manner. It may take a day or three or more to get back to you. If I do not know an answer, I will attempt to research an answer. If I can't come up with an answer I will let you know.
Send a post to this thread if you have an arduino programming question.
Thanks again to everybody for all your help with my robot questions.
In turn I would like to offer help, if you need it, for arduino programming. I want to return the favor so to speak.
I will not write all the code for your project, I will offer advice and code examples and maybe demo programs if I can.
Between my day job and my stingray project I will do my best to answer your questions in a timely manner. It may take a day or three or more to get back to you. If I do not know an answer, I will attempt to research an answer. If I can't come up with an answer I will let you know.
Send a post to this thread if you have an arduino programming question.
Thanks again to everybody for all your help with my robot questions.
Comments
Should I remove my post?
Mike is right that this is a Parallax form, and since there are Parallax processors and Parallax robots, it sure seems like your hybrid of a Parallax Stingray robot with an Arduino would be of interest to many people here. IMO this is the best forum along those lines.
Please keep your post on here.
I'm one of those people who sometimes works with Arduinos. Not by choice, mind you, but just trying to keep the kiddies happy (or whatever).
I'm perpetually whining-wishing somebody would use the Propeller to make an Arduino shield that gives the Arduino some cool features, like reduce the dependency on those annoying interrupts, maybe provide VGA output, etc.
I'm no expert but it appears to me that some Propeller-based shields could make for some very interesting hybrid devices - use the Arduino as a "front" while the Propeller kicks some butt in the backroom with its parallel processing abilities.
Just thinking out loud, tho.
It's nice of you to toss your offer out here.
Welcome to the forum.
While this forum is hosted by Parallax and they make microcontrollers, Arduino users popup from time to time asking how to use various Parallax sensors with it. For the sensors that I own I've ported some of the PBasic sample to the Arduino's C++ dialect to help out, and learn.parallax.com has samples for many others. Since you might own a different collection of Parallax sensors there's a need there when someone shows up.
I actually use the BS2, Arduino, and Propeller chip and tend to mix it up between projects. Now that there's C++ on the Propeller I've been starting to look into writing portable code between the two microcontrollers. They both have similar amounts of memory, but the cores are much easier to deal with than timers.
Capital idea, ElectricAye! Everyone and his brother makes a Prop-based board. It's surprising in that gallimaufry of choices, there is nothing like what you describe to tap into the shield-crazed Arduino crowd.
ElectricEye, a Propeller-based co-processor shield is indeed a terrific idea. It does all those things, and would support a simple command structure to communicate with the Arduino. To my knowledge no one has done one, though Phil's Propeller Backpack comes close to the basic concept. A while back I did an article for SERVO on using a Propeller as a sound co-processor, driven by the Arduino to play MIDI, sound effects, and WAV audio. I think it used only two cores, leaving six free for something else...
The one stumbling block is that many Arduino users don't want to learn a new programming language, so it would be nifty if the board came pre-programmed (like the Backpack) for the most common functionality. You'd then activate/deactivate the pre-programmed blocks through setup code.
Erco, when can we have a first prototype?
-- Gordon
He can have the plywood mock up by Monday. It will take a while to get enough relays to build the working prototype.
@tomega3: Lending your Arduino expertise to the Pellerduino project Dave Hein mentioned above would be a great contribution.
I'm seeing a universal Stamp/Prop/PicAxe/AVR/Arduino/RasPi/Launchpad/x86/Orangutan translator.
Relay-driven, natch.
whatever you do folks, don't dare erco...
I have read that there is coming a 32 bit 80 Mhz arduino compatible (IDE wise, language and library too) so the horsepower should be there. I am looking into one called an RFduino (see http://www.rfduino.com) for my future projects.
I am an old assembly, and C programmer from years gone by. My first computer was a PDP 8, (see http://www.pdp8.net/pdp8i/pdp8i.shtml)
I have worked with the intel 80x86 and motorola 68000 chips a long time ago. My development environment is Windows. I choose the arduino mainly because its language, entry costs, and proliferation of libraries and its IDE runs on Windows. I did not know about the Propeller at the time I got back into working with microcontrollers. I would have got one back then but I am committed to the arduino platform
The rasberry pi looks interesting to but I do not have the interest or time to learn a new development environment such as Linux, Python, etc.
I guess its a comfort thing, You go with what you know and if you have the time to learn a whole new OS and language go for it.
An old dog can learn new tricks if he wants to and I may eventually get a Propeller or Rasberry pi when my day job and other projects afford me the time.
quick message for erco: I ordered the 100:1 gear motors with the encoders for my stingray, when I get them installed and get the encoder code runnning I will post a progress report. I found a 132:1 gear motor with encoders for $30 each on dfrobot website.
BTW I'll also throw in a plug for Phil's Propeller Backpack. While it was intended to be used for Basic Stamp 2 users to add video text output, it's equally usable from an Arduino, and equally useful. It's absolutely tiny too.
The Propeller chip is a microcontroller like the Basic Stamp2 or Arduino. Essentially it is a complete microprocessor and RAM on a single chip intended to be used without an operating system, like the classic microcomputers from the 80's. This means that your code can interact in real time without concern that another program will access the CPU. The Raspberry Pi is a single board computer which loads an operating system from an SD card which has a protected mode kernel, virtual memory, and multiple processes.
Microcontrollers are fairly easy to use to control things like servos and steppers, while a Raspberry Pi would be tricky because you would need to write a kernel driver to interact with real time devices. I used to write kernel mode code for a living in the late 80's and 90's and really don't feel like doing it again, so I'll stick with microcontrollers.
Yes, indeed, for the most part (present company excluded), you can not expect the Arduino crowd to want to learn anything outside their precious Arduino bubble. They will balk at anything unfamiliar. So whatever you do, it must be ready-to-go right out of the box. But I can easily imagine a dozen or so different Prop-based shields could be made from exactly the same hardware - only the pre-loaded SPIN software would need to be different. Or could pre-loaded EEPROMs be swappable? is that a possibility? In any case, interfacing with the Arduino would need to be a no-brainer. But I'm sure once the Arduino users got a feeling for the possibilities, some of them would be eager to find out how these new-fangled shields strut their stuff.
The concept behind the Propeller isn't an obvious one -- I know because I didn't get it at first -- so something pre-programmed out of the chute that *does something* is a good way to broaden its appeal to users of single-core MCUs. The most obvious are projects that involve WAV playback from a uSD card, wheel encoders (maybe the whole PID control system for two motors), remote control listening, that sort of thing. A single prop can do these things, and several others at the same time.
Sell them something! Yes indeed! I wish some of the entrepreneurial geniuses on here would get busy on this. It seems to me it would be like shooting fish in a barrel.
Genius!