The robot lab asks you to work with a few other students and write code for a robot arm. At the end of the semester, we’ll have a robot talent show in which you show the class what you and your robot have done.

Goals

  • get experience building and troubleshooting a robot
  • apply some NLP techniques in the wild
  • enjoy something that doesn’t directly involve math

Startup

“Computers are like old testament gods – lots of rules and no mercy.” – Douglas Adams

Read each set of instructions all the way through before you do anything. Understand what applies to your installation (and what doesn’t). Ask your instructors for help if you have any doubts. If you make a mistake, you might have to reformat your computer.

Your computer should already have Ubuntu 20 on it.

  1. Name and label your robot. A name should match its personality.
  2. Install the correct version of ROS (noetic).
  3. Install the Interbotix drivers.
  4. Try one of the python demos – for example ‘bartender.py’.

Tips

Always treat your robot with the respect due another semisentient creature. Like a horse, it will (probably) be nice to you if you are nice to it. Like a horse, it is expensive, and fixing it costs money.

Each of you has a slightly different model of robot arm (printed on the chassis). Specify your model when running the python scripts.

Interbotix is the brand of robot arm, made by Trossen.

You are using ROS 1, not ROS 2.

Some of the robot arms are self sabotaging basket cases, and may flop over dejectedly if they exceed their own parameters. They will indicate their exhaustion with flashing red lights on the affected joint. They must be rebooted, but see the next point:

Take care when powering down an arm that is not in the ‘sleep’ position, because when power is removed, the joints will lose their torque, and the robot arm will collapse (which is not nice to do to the robot). If you must pull the power, cradle it gently as you do so.

Robot decoration is encouraged so long as it is temporary.

Next Steps

Once you have the demo python script running, you are more or less free to run wild by writing your own python scripts, and I encourage you to use your creativity to see what you can get the robot to do.

  • Can you control the robot via keywords in a terminal application?
  • Can you get the robot to respond to a voice command?
  • Can you pick something up? And put it (gently) down again?
  • Can you make the robot dance? Play chess? Conduct a symphony?
  • Can you make the robot write down the things you say? (robot, please take a memo…)

You are very welcome to ask us for ingredients: robot toys, mobile platform, flamethrower, etc…

Talent Show

We will have a robot talent show on Thursday, December 1. I may dress in a tuxedo and award special jury prizes for the best and most interesting robot tricks.