Robotics

Robotics

Because this wiki needs a page on robotics.

TCL code

CLARAty (Coupled Layer Architecture for Robotic Autonomy) is a robotic control and computer vision library developed by the JPL, written in C++ with Tcl bindings.

The OpenRobots project makes extensive use of Tcl: Genom is a controller architecture whose client modules have Tcl shell bindings, the gdhe 3D visualization tool is delivered as a loadable Tcl library extension, and eltclsh is an extended Tcl interpreter shell with command line editing, history browsing as well as variables and command completion thanks to editline features.

A wish list for tcl packages for use in open source robotics projects. (This list was admittedly built by an amateur):

• native installed Tcl/Tk on the most common Raspberry Pi distributions" . Raspberry Pi3 updates includes TCL/Tk 8.6.
• a tcllib-like library for manipulating GPIO (inputs, controllers, feedback display, etc.) and interacting with a standard set of peripheral devices. (Check out piio - is there a version that does not need compiling?)
• a tcllib-like library that interfaces to RTIMULlib for interacting with raw magnetometer/gyro/accelerometer sensor data and calculated corrections to create an inertial measurement unit (IMU).
• a tcllib-like library of algorithms for managing common robotic activities (movement, maze-solving, line-following, obstacle avoidance ,etc.)

Learning Resources

Robotics Competitions and Challenges

Does anyone know of Tcl being used in any competition projects?

• http://www.robotchallenge.org/
• http://www.drgraeme.net/DrGraeme-free-NXT-G-tutorials/ChV4.htm
• http://www.theroboticschallenge.org/ - DARPA sponsored competition
• http://www.robotx.org/
• http://www.euroc-project.eu/
• http://www.firstlegoleague.org/
• http://piwars.org/
• http://makerfaire.com/ - Not a competition, strictly, but places where new ideas and projects are shared. There is probably one organized near you.
• http://robogames.net/index.php
• http://www.robonation.org/competitions

Projects

Commercially available toys and hobby kits

• Lego Mindstorms - Lego provides an EV3 programming software to connect and control components. Check out the TclRCX page for a Tcl development environment for Mindstorms. Note: the links here and here seem to be dying. Does anyone have a reference to the most current version and some examples?

DIY projects

Projects you can build at home from scratch. Any plans available out there?

Robotics projects and kits for teaching children about technology

• littleBits - component-based educational kits that connect together with magnets which allow young children to assemble working devices in seconds, and experiment with modifications. There is an Arduino coding kit available.
• OzoBlocky - Makers of Ozobot Bit (video here ), a small, programmable robot used to teach block programming.
• Circuit Playground - A small hardware board with integrated sensors and outputs (LED, MIDI and gpio) from Adafruit intended for introductory learning about electronics. It comes with a complete set of online tutorials amd libraries for Arduino only. Sigh.
• http://www.vexrobotics.com/vexiq
• Astro-Pi (now called SenseHat) - an add-on board for the Raspberry Pi with sensors and an rgb LED grid. Use to teach kids programming with an interface to the real world. Flew on the ISS. See https://astro-pi.org/resources/
• micro:bit - A small, cheap microprocessor board with sensors, LED's, Bluetooth that was given to UK schoolchildren to learn coding. There are a number of ways to code and interact with the device. At the minimum, Yyou can code on a smartphone and send code to the micro:bit via Bluetooth. See: http://microbit.org/

Robot Building Blocks

Places where TCLers may find components.

Central Processors

• RaspberryPi . See also Raspberry Pi.

Microcontrollers

• Arduino - http://www.arduino.org/

Motors, Actuators and other Devices

Software

• ROS(Robot Operating System) - Open source robot software library (affiliated with http://www.osrfoundation.org/ , the open source robotics foundation). It looks like there are client libraries developed by the user community for many languages. There is no tcl library, but there is a wiki page on implementing client libraries . There are tutorials available on how to setup ROS on the Raspberry Pi .
• ESP8266 HTTP IO - An ESP8266 Http IO server with examples calling it, including Tcl and other languages. (ESP8266 is a wifi microntroller chip manufactured by Espressif in China and sold as a module or with other components on a breakout board by various board manufacturers and distributors.)

Land mobility

Water mobility

PYK 2016-05-08: Do either of these companies employ Tcl?

• Underwater Robotics - A new underwater robotics company specialized in underwater thrusters and actuators.
• Blue Robotics - a relatively new company which recently launched its flagship T100 and T200 underwater thruster. They also now manufacture waterproof micro-controllers and actuators.

Air mobility

Sensors

• Lego Mindstorms - Lego provides an EV3 programming software to connect and control components.
• Vision - opencv.org is an open source computer vision library. tcl-opencv provides some OpenCV functions.

From the history File

• This comp.lang.tcl post from 1994 reads like something that could have been posted last week: Tcl software to control a robot for a robot competition.