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

[Walter Bender]

On Mon, Nov 18, 2013 at 7:02 AM, Alan Jhonn Aguiar Schwyn
<alanjas at hotmail.com> wrote:
>> Date: Mon, 18 Nov 2013 20:10:36 +1100
>> From: quozl at laptop.org
>> To: holt at unleashkids.org
>> CC: alanjas at hotmail.com; sugar-devel at lists.sugarlabs.org;
>> unleashkids at googlegroups.com
>> Subject: Re: [Sugar-devel] [UKids] ProtoSnap with Arduino plugin
>
>>
>> On Mon, Nov 18, 2013 at 03:03:55AM -0500, Adam Holt wrote:
>> > With Alan Aguiar's great breakthrough, we've confirmed TurtleBots
>> > works with the ProtoSnap Pro Mini as-is, plug-n-play.  TurtleBots
>> > can also co-exist with the regular version of Turtle Blocks, unlike
>> > the previous hacked version of Turtle Art.
>>
>> Good to hear.
>>
>> It would be better if Turtle Blocks could include the Arduino plugin
>> always. Something for Walter to consider. I'll CC sugar-devel@ to
>> engage him.
>
> We decided mantain TurtleBlocks very simple and the system of plugins
> allows add any in a easy way. In the wiki there are all the plugins each
> one in a .tar.gz. You download it, and go to "load plugin" in turtle and the
> plugin is installed automatically and it's ready to work! Is not necessary
> restart the TurtleBlocks.
>
> Since version 19 of TurtleBots we include Arduino plugin and we continue
> including it in all future TurtleBots.
> The same with: Lego WeDo, Lego NxT, FollowMe, etc.

To me there are two issues with the plugin model: discoverability (it
is lost in the huge TA page in the wiki) and discoverability of the
plugins themselves. Really, we want some download mechanism for
plugins from ASLO and a standard way to install them from there.

-walter

>
>
>>
>> > How to reorganize the wiki page, given much of that info's now quite
>> > unnecessary for teachers?
>>
>> It is only unnecessary if the ProtoSnap is provided with
>> StandardFirmata already uploaded. The SparkFun product you linked on
>> the page does not have this. You need to clear that up. The
>> ambiguity will cause trouble for readers.
>>
>> Meanwhile, I have moved the StandardFirmata uploading to a subpage, so
>> now you will find the page more appropriate for teachers who are given
>> an already uploaded ProtoSnap. You will see that the instructions are
>> much shorter.
>>
>> > Perhaps a new section for the ProtoSnap Pro Mini in the massive
>> > Turtle Blocks HOW-TO page[1]?
>>
>> The Turtle Blocks page on the Sugar Wiki is way too big to add a
>> ProtoSnap - Pro Mini specific section. But really, the ProtoSnap -
>> Pro Mini is just one of many Arduino boards that will work with Turtle
>> Blocks. I see no reason to call it out in particular.
>>
>> > I would ask who on this list can install Alan's next build of
>> > TurtleBots-(23) and help produce the priceless global documentation
>> > or screenshots educators need for their ProtoSnap and TurtleBots:
>> >
>> > - How to control the LED
>> > - How to control the buzzer
>> > - How to read the light sensor
>> > - How to read the push button
>>
>> Indeed, you could do with some lesson plans. That is something for
>> the Sugar Labs Wiki, since it will be applicable to all uses of Turtle
>> Blocks.
>>
>> > Basic steps for each of the above and a fun exercise such as 1)
>> > TurtleBots blocks to make the buzzer play a tune[2] or 2) have the
>> > light sensor trigger changes in pen-down drawing or sounds in
>> > TurtleBots.
>> >
>> > Do any modifications to the blocks themselves need to be made to
>> > better operate the Pro Mini, such as blocks with commands to send
>> > sound signals?
>>
>> No idea.
>>
>> > Thanks to true volunteer experts who've brought us this far; we are
>> > incredibly close to bringing this tactile open learning gem into the
>> > hands of teachers across all continents!
>>
>> I don't think you should hesitate to bring it to teachers now and use
>> the experience to tune the install guide and lesson plans. Close the
>> feedback loop.
>>
>> > Adam in Malaysia with 5 other brand new ProtoSnap tinkerers.
>> >
>> > [1] http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Activities/Turtle_Art
>> > [2] Speaker example code - play musical tones (ProtoSnap)
>> > http://lilypadarduino.org/?page_id=716
>> > from
>> > http://lilypadarduino.org/?page_id=550
>> >
>> > --
>> > Unsung Heroes of OLPC, interviewed live @ http://unleashkids.org !
>> >
>> >
>> > On Sun, Nov 17, 2013 at 6:57 PM, Mike Lee <curiouslee at gmail.com> wrote:
>> >
>> > Alan,
>> >
>> > I just downloaded your beta and replaced version 22 with it. I repeated
>> > all
>> > the previously successful steps. Everything worked the same and I got
>> > the
>> > expected blinking LED.
>> >
>> > I will be happy to keep the cable and board with the XO and test your
>> > next
>> > builds until you have a final version 23. But also there are many people
>> > (12 or more) who have Adam's boards. Maybe they can confirm as well.
>> >
>> > Mike
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> > On Sun, Nov 17, 2013 at 6:29 PM, Alan Jhonn Aguiar Schwyn <
>> > alanjas at hotmail.com> wrote:
>> >
>> > Hi,
>> >
>> > Good! :-)
>> > Can you test the latest version with new PyFirmata?
>> > I attach a "beta" TurtleBots 23 that I just compile. Is not
>> > the "final" version 23.
>> > This version is builded with TurtleBlocks 193+.
>> >
>> > Regards!
>> >
>> > Alan
>> >
>> > md5 TurtleBots-23.xo:  5014f44e18331bba0869890a72553986
>> >
>> > ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
>> > Date: Sun, 17 Nov 2013 17:36:33 -0500
>> >
>> > Subject: Re: [UKids] ProtoSnap with Arduino plugin
>> > From: curiouslee at gmail.com
>> > To: alanjas at gmail.com
>> > CC: unleashkids at googlegroups.com
>> >
>> >
>> > Alan,
>> >
>> > I just downloaded and installed Turtlebots-22 on a fresh install of
>> > Sugar 0.100 on XO-4 Touch HS B1. I plugged in a Sparkfun Protosnap Pro
>> > Mini board which has Standard Firmata installed with the Arduino IDE on
>> > a PC. I started Turtlebots and ran the script that Ian Daniher gave me
>> > to blink the LED and it worked fine. It's great to finally see a Sugar
>> > activity that will work with the Unleash Kids version of the board with
>> > no special configuration. I also own an NXT kit and WeDo, and will now
>> > try those out when I get a chance.
>> >
>> >
>> > Photo
>> >
>> > http://www.flickr.com/photos/curiouslee/10913305974/
>> >
>> >
>> > Video
>> >
>> > http://www.flickr.com/photos/curiouslee/10913484183/
>> >
>> >
>> > I am no longer directly involved with Unleash Kids, but I know Adam has
>> > as many as 100 of these boards on which Sparkfun has pre-installed
>> > Standard Firmata. You could order this board from Sparkfun and install
>> > firmata yourself, but Adam got his boards at a discount (purchasing
>> > with his own funds). I know he would also like the community to use of
>> > them and additionally help document how to work with the other
>> > components on the board such as the buzzer, light sensor and push
>> > button. Brian Huang at Sparkfun has told me he has built an
>> > XO-compatible tethered robot based on the Pro Mini board, H-bridge chip
>> > and Magician chassis, but I have not had a chance to try his code. He
>> > was favoring the use of Ardublock in Gnome.
>> >
>> >
>> > You might contact Adam at holt [at] unleashkids [dot] org to work
>> > something out if you want one of his boards.
>> >
>> >
>> > Mike
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> > On Sun, Nov 17, 2013 at 9:52 AM, Alan Aguiar <alanjas at gmail.com> wrote:
>> >
>> > Hi,
>> >
>> > I was seeing this wiki entry: http://wiki.laptop.org/go/
>> > ProtoSnap_Contributors_Guide
>> > 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).
>> > 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
>> >
>> > 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.
>> > 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).
>> >
>> > 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???
>> >
>> > Regards!
>> >
>> > Alan
>> >
>> > --
>> > Unsung Heroes of OLPC, interviewed live @ http://unleashkids.org !
>> > ---
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>>
>> --
>> James Cameron
>> http://quozl.linux.org.au/
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-- 
Walter Bender
Sugar Labs
http://www.sugarlabs.org