[Sugar-devel] [UKids] ProtoSnap with Arduino plugin

[James Cameron]

On Sun, Nov 17, 2013 at 06:52:26AM -0800, Alan Aguiar wrote:
> I was seeing this wiki entry: http://wiki.laptop.org/go/
> ProtoSnap_Contributors_Guide

I have contributed there.

> And see that it uses Arduino plugin. I'm mantaining this plugin for
> TurtleBlocks (AKA TurtleArt) and the version showed have a little
> bugs (for example, the read analog and digital blocks not returns
> the read value).

Were these tickets in Sugar Labs bug tracker?  Or are you tracking
changes using git only?  (Just curious, not criticising.)

> With a friend, we update the PyFirmate in the plugin to latest 0.9.5.
> Can you check on this GIT:
> http://git.sugarlabs.org/arduino

git://git.sugarlabs.org/arduino/mainline.git

Thanks, reviewed.  I see the changes.

The repository name "arduino" seems too short.  Perhaps this
repository should be named turtleblocks-arduino?

The boards.py file added in db6e133 does not contain the Arduino Pro
Mini used by the ProtoSnap.  Is that important?

Ian Daniher's repository is a fork of your repository from 2013-06-18,
hash ec0719f.  Ian's change in de87b83 looks cleaner than your change
in 9655ec5 but both achieve a similar effect.  You may wish to take
Ian's change instead.

> About installation: the process described is correct but have their
> problems, for example: git is not installed by default on XO. And in
> some places like Uruguay, you don't have root access to install
> anything.

Yes.

The lack of git can be worked around using a ZIP download from github.

https://github.com/itdaniher/turtleblocks-arduino/archive/de87b830207701eccc2503ff7c5ae4a931a73186.zip

But still, can't install ino or make without root.  So this method is
unavailable to Uruguay post-deployment.

> Other option is use the option "Load plugin" of TurtleBlocks that
> install automatically the plugin selected (only you need download a
> .tar.gz into the Sugar Journal and press Load Plugin and it was
> installed).

No, that is insufficient, you still need to load the firmware into the
Arduino.

> But that are a bit complicated... To solve that, we package the
> Arduino plugin (and others like Lego NxT, Lego WeDo, etc)
> with TurtleBlocks in a new activity called TurtleBots:
> http://activities.sugarlabs.org/en-US/sugar/addon/4434
> 
> I'm not have a board to test, someone can test it???

I've downloaded turtlebots-22.xo but there is no firmata firmware in
it, so this does not achieve any of the more fundamental and important
steps in http://wiki.laptop.org/go/ProtoSnap_Contributors_Guide

I suggest these steps can be done by pre-building the StandardFirmata
sketch for various Arduino, and packaging both the binary output of
these builds _and_ an activity local copy of avrdude for programming
it into the Arduino board.

.uy deployment may also add packages ino, git and make in next
season's build.

-- 
James Cameron
http://quozl.linux.org.au/