Robotic platform Newbie question
This is obviously coming from a complete robotics "newbie Dad", so sorry for the elementary nature of the question:
If we begin creating an autonomous self and environment aware robot, how much of the work could be done with the Parallax Propeller platform, and then at what point would you offload the data gathered from sensors to something more computationally robust such as a Beaglebone Black or Raspberry Pi?
My limited work on anything remotely related to this is just doing the Activity Bot kit with my daughter for a science project, and the Robot Shield with Arduino kit. That project sparked some interest in both of us, which resulted in a PILE of electronics stuff - and Robot magazine, Nuts & Volts, and Servo every month. Much of it is still over our heads at the moment (she is 12, turning 13 this summer) and I'm in the health care field, not electronics. But it's all pretty fascinating and at least it gets her to browse the articles. I figure you never know what might stick.
We put our heads together and came up with an idea for a challenging long term project: A robot that could tell you about its surroundings and where it is in relation to other known things. For example, object properties: is something hard or soft; how far away it is; if the object is light or dark or a certain color; if an object is moving toward it or away from it, etc...it would get "smarter" and more aware as we get better at building and programming it over the next several years. We would like to have this scanning LiDAR we helped back be part of it when we get ours late this year, and in the distant future when we're advanced, either a video or still camera it could analyze or at least "show" a human operator someday along with several sensors' data.
Another reason for this question: Kat's going into 8th grade, so we have over a year, but she is interested in a charter high school that is heavily tech oriented. They had an open house Friday, and she loved the Architecture, CAD & CNC, and robotics presentations. Their robotics club pres mentioned they were shifting from Java to C++ next year. She's wanting to try and learn something relevant so that she can be on the robotic design team even as a freshman. If we could point her in the right direction over the next year...I'm sure it would help her chances.
We have accumulated quite a pile of goodies now - just not sure what the most productive direction is for the project. Should we focus on learning the Propeller interface with sensors first, and then switch gears to learning global control & integration of it all on a Raspberry Pi or something? Which direction would you all put your energy into first, and about where would you feel the crossover of the bot be from Propeller to global control by larger CPU platform?
Thank you for your time and tips!
Jed and Kat
If we begin creating an autonomous self and environment aware robot, how much of the work could be done with the Parallax Propeller platform, and then at what point would you offload the data gathered from sensors to something more computationally robust such as a Beaglebone Black or Raspberry Pi?
My limited work on anything remotely related to this is just doing the Activity Bot kit with my daughter for a science project, and the Robot Shield with Arduino kit. That project sparked some interest in both of us, which resulted in a PILE of electronics stuff - and Robot magazine, Nuts & Volts, and Servo every month. Much of it is still over our heads at the moment (she is 12, turning 13 this summer) and I'm in the health care field, not electronics. But it's all pretty fascinating and at least it gets her to browse the articles. I figure you never know what might stick.
We put our heads together and came up with an idea for a challenging long term project: A robot that could tell you about its surroundings and where it is in relation to other known things. For example, object properties: is something hard or soft; how far away it is; if the object is light or dark or a certain color; if an object is moving toward it or away from it, etc...it would get "smarter" and more aware as we get better at building and programming it over the next several years. We would like to have this scanning LiDAR we helped back be part of it when we get ours late this year, and in the distant future when we're advanced, either a video or still camera it could analyze or at least "show" a human operator someday along with several sensors' data.
Another reason for this question: Kat's going into 8th grade, so we have over a year, but she is interested in a charter high school that is heavily tech oriented. They had an open house Friday, and she loved the Architecture, CAD & CNC, and robotics presentations. Their robotics club pres mentioned they were shifting from Java to C++ next year. She's wanting to try and learn something relevant so that she can be on the robotic design team even as a freshman. If we could point her in the right direction over the next year...I'm sure it would help her chances.
We have accumulated quite a pile of goodies now - just not sure what the most productive direction is for the project. Should we focus on learning the Propeller interface with sensors first, and then switch gears to learning global control & integration of it all on a Raspberry Pi or something? Which direction would you all put your energy into first, and about where would you feel the crossover of the bot be from Propeller to global control by larger CPU platform?
Thank you for your time and tips!
Jed and Kat
Comments
Arlo has been around in various forms for many years and will be here many more. You'll find very helpful, eager and friendly people on this forum. Be sure to post in this thread too: http://forums.parallax.com/discussion/161243/why-are-too-few-females-in-robotics-could-it-be-the-robots
We all look forward to hearing more about Kat's endeavors!
In the meantime we've got two Jeeps, a '49 CJ2A and '81 CJ7 to finish up in the garage - that's going to be the beginning summer project and maybe we'll dabble with the Activity bots we have for now...then when the Jeeps are done and school starts, we can see about an investment in a larger robot platform. Anything similar to the Arlo we should look at? Seems to be a good sized rig.
I think I got the info I needed though - plenty she can do and learn with the Propeller and sensors first, and just transition later as the bot gets more complex. So when it feels like we can't do something on it, then time to add in the Raspberry Pi, etc as a global controller on top of the Propeller. Maybe when the Sweep LiDAR arrives toward the end of the year, that might be the tipping point. Not sure a prop chip could keep up with something like that. But it could surprise me!
Lastly, have you or anyone here ever used The Robot Operating System (ROS)? After reading a few articles online about building Robots, this seems to come up a bit. Looks like a neat thing, a common OS to use for building a bot, and you could do it with any linux based system such as the Pi. Unfortunately looks like they only interface between the ROS and arduino chips for sensor controllers, but wonder if anyone's tried to interface a Propeller chip in with an ROS controlled bot?
ARLOBOT/
Jim
Yeah, I hope Kat stays interested in the robotics thing. I guess time will tell, but seems like way too few girls / young ladies into it. Just going off some conversations I've overheard between her and some friends, I think the young ladies could add a lot of creativity into this field. Thinking outside the box kind of stuff. Well, here's to hoping she's still into an Arlo or some other large robotic platform that cool at the end of the summer. :-D
Personally, I find a Propeller to make an EXCELLENT real time I/O robotics co-processor for the Pi!
So much so that I designed and market RoboPi
http://www.mikronauts.com/raspberry-pi/robopi/
Please see Elf, my RoboPi + Raspberry Pi based robot build log on my site:
http://www.mikronauts.com/robot-zoo/elf-2wd-pi-robot/
You might also be interested in my series of articles in Servo Magazine, starting in the January 2016 issue, covering how to select chassis, motors, and much more.
Actually, you might want to browse my Pi index page for my articles, projects and products:
http://www.mikronauts.com/raspberry-pi/
The LIDAR's are certainly neat, I should be getting one soon.
I think you and Kat and her teacher will like RoboPi, and possibly some of my other robot controllers.
I'd suggest both
I find programming robots in Python, from a remote ssh session while the bot is running around, to be great
Should you be interested, you can download:
RoboPi Build Manual v0.98
RoboPi User Manual v0.85b
From the product page. The first shows how to build the kit, and the second shows how to program it in C & Python.
I drop by this forum about once a week, so if you have any questions please feel free to ask them here, or the RoboPi thread in the P1 forum, my forum, or via email.
I can be reached at "mikronauts" at "gmail" dot "com"
I think Parallax would do well to try and leverage the Raspberry Pi audience to buy this sort of thing and more Propeller chips and accessory sensors, etc. Have they considered it? The Raspberry Pi user base is large and still growing.
Do you think it would work well for a larger robot platform, maybe something the size of the Arlo or so? I was thinking I could use Parallax's motor and wheel setup they have, but I'd like to have something a little more robust for the operating system instead of just the Propeller on the Activity board. This might be the best of both worlds, and I'll bet a Raspberry Pi 3 might be powerful enough now to run ROS right on the bot itself - no need to run it from a separate laptop anymore.
Lots to do on the Jeep projects first before tackling a larger robot, but we're making headway. Got the new springs and rear axle under the Willy's CJ2A and she looks good.
Thanks again for the tips and we will look forward to your articles in Servo - pretty cool to meet someone that writes for the mag on here!
Best,
Jed (and Kat)
You are most welcome! And please call me Bill.
And thank you for your kind words about RoboPi
While Parallax may have considered it, Ken has not expressed any interest - I think they are focusing on their own Propeller-only dev boards.
I am focusing on the Raspberry Pi, and other similar single board computers, where RoboPi makes for a great robotics / DAQ add-on for hard real time uses :-)
I designed RoboPi for larger, more sophisticated bots - frankly it is overkill for a small simple bot, my PiDroidAlpha is more suitable for those - and some customers are using RoboPi on some amazing bots - DriverBob's readily comes to mind:
http://forums.parallax.com/discussion/135857/next-large-robot#latest
He is using six RoboPi's, one per leg, for a man-sized hexapod, with another propeller board coordinating them.
I'd suggest using the Parallax HB-25's for driving high current draw motors - as far as RoboPi is concerned, they will look like two servos.
You can see RoboPi on a Raspberry Pi 3 in my Raspberry Pi 3 Review at
http://www.mikronauts.com/raspberry-pi/raspberry-piraspberry-pi-3-model-b-review/7/
and if you google "raspberry pi 3 ros" you will see the progress people have made with ROS on Pi's.
You are very welcome!
Hmm... self-driving kid's jeep... hmm
I STRONGLY recommend you get a digital subscription to SERVO, it is cheap, and lets you read all the past issues!
See http://www.servomagazine.com/index.php/magazine/contributor/william_henning
for a list of my articles to date in Servo, they are missing Serving Raspberry Pi #2 in the list.
We have several people who write for Servo on these forum's - John, Erco and I think Whit has an article too (and probably many others)
Best Regards,
Bill