Downloadable ROS Base images?

Posted by: @spyder

Somebody mentioned the turtleros, so I downloaded that and imaged it onto one of my Pi's

What model of Pi did you image it onto?   From what I've read it may not work on anything less than a Pi 3 B+.   I have five Raspberry Pies but they are all model 1.  So supposedly ROS won't run on them without serious issues.  It's my understanding the same is true of model 2 Pies.  And maybe even be true for the Zero too?  

What model of the Raspberry Pi does the Turtlebot run?  Does anyone know?

Got it,

I'm writing a howto for installing ROS on a Raspberry Pi.

Until someone comes up with a better name, I am calling the project 'DB1.R1  for DroneBot1 with ROS attempt one.'

I would appreciate your feedback.

Hopefully, we can refine it until a DroneBotWorkshop (I wonder if there is a correct capitalization for that) builder can do the install without losing any hair. 

I should be ready by tomorrow morning. Until then I am going radio silent to avoid distractions:)

Posted by: @robo-pi

What model of Pi did you image it onto?   From what I've read it may not work on anything less than a Pi 3 B+.   I have five Raspberry Pies but they are all model 1.  So supposedly ROS won't run on them without serious issues.  It's my understanding the same is true of model 2 Pies.  And maybe even be true for the Zero too

I doubt you'll have a lot of luck with anything less than a Pi 3 B+ robo-pi, the Zero and those older models don't have a lot of CPU horsepower.

@twobits I'm really looking forward to seeing your install instructions. I'll use them on the Raspberry Pi 4 I just received and see how they work out.  I appreciate your work on this, as it was something that I was going to need to do soon.

?

Bill

Posted by: @robo-pi

What model of Pi did you image it onto? 

This one is a 3B as the only B+ I have is dedicated to one of my printers, and I am loathe to change it because that's the one running Jarvis and I know there are some hardware changes between the B and the B+ that I can't just take the card from one and expect it to run in the other, so the B+ stays where it is

I guess I could order another one...

Hey. Best Buy has them in store in stock. Wow. I did not know that. I'll pick one up tomorrow

In the meantime, I put the iso onto a thumb drive, and neither the Atomic Pi (which has the strangest BIOS with no option for linux, even tho it COMES with linux pre-installed) nor the laptop seems to like the live version of the USB. I didn't really want to do a full install on the laptop without testing it first, but I guess I can

Hmm. It seems to be barking at the NTFS. I don't think it's going to reformat the drive

Oh, wait. Yes, it's doing something

Posted by: @dronebot-workshop

I doubt you'll have a lot of luck with anything less than a Pi 3 B+ robo-pi, the Zero and those older models don't have a lot of CPU horsepower.

All this tells me is that ROS is most likely software that I can do without.   Why would I want to bother putting a lot of software on my robot that is going to bog everything down when my system is more than powerful enough to run my own extremely lightweight and efficient code with power to spare?

In order to pay the price for adding such a resource-consuming package like ROS to my robot system ROS would need to have extreme benefits that would make its addition worth the overhead.  Until I see those extreme benefits it's hard to become interested in such a resource-consuming package.

As I said before, ROS may be extremely useful in the Industrial world of robotics.  But on a project like DB1?

I just don't see where it's going to offer any benefits that would make it worthwhile.

I just hope you don't end up using ROS to do something you could have done by just writing a few lines of code.   I'd rather see your code Bill.  That would be far more valuable to me. ? 

@robo-pi

Hi Robo Pi,

In reading through all your posts on this sounds like you should just throw together a simple HTTP framework to talk the Pi. Having the Pi GPIO and other things you build in like OpenCV would make it easy to call from your C# windows controlling app.

I already have a C# program that talks directly to the Raspberry Pi and the Aduino Mega via WiFi.   I call the program the "Robot Overseer".   Although this program is only intended as an interface for prototyping the robot.  The robot itself will be autonomous and won't require the Robot Overseer to control it.

Here's a screenshot of my Robot Overseer program.  This is a newer version of it.  I was originally writing different C# programs for different areas of programming, but now I've decided to put them all into one package:

The program has one main Windows Form that contains 6 Child Forms.  Each child form addresses a specific part of the robot design.  The 6 windows are as follows:

1. Robo Pass - used to communicate to the robots.
2. Navigation - allows the robots to tell me exactly where they are using maps.
3. Arm Control - allow me to interact with any of the robots limbs.
4. Voice Speaker - for prototyping what the robots will say.
5. Voice Recognition - for prototyping how the robots comprehend what they hear.
6. Automation - this is for organizing the memory of task they learn.

A lot of these windows in this screenshot are empty, but that's because I haven't yet transferred over the code from their previous stand-alone C# applications.

In fact, I'm rebuilding this entire program from scratch and I've been thinking about making videos on it as I do this.  Unfortunately time is something I don't have a lot of of  during the summer months.  This is best done during the winter for me. ? 

So I already have full communications between my notebook computer and my robots.  Unfortunately my "robots" are lacking bodies.  I guess a Raspberry Pi card sitting on a table top hardly constitutes a "Robot".  The bodies are coming along ever-so-slowly.

@robo-pi

What program are you using to get that picture/programming in.

@robo-pi

So ROS or Myrobotlab for you is a moot point! Nice job.

Posted by: @starnovice

What program are you using to get that picture/programming in.

Not sure what you are asking here.   The picture of my program is just a screenshot of the program actually running.

@robo-pi

That's really COOL !

Actually, why not just call a raspi a robot for the time being ?

It doesn't have to have a head or eyes or anything. Just hook up a motor controller to a few LEDs and see if they light up when you tell it to go or tell the arms to move or something

I got tired of waiting for mine to be built up enough to where I was gonna need the robotics so I just threw something together last night real quick to act as a "proof of concept" kind of thing

I just gave it a Pi, an arduino, a couple of motors, a motor controller and a pixycam and I reckon I'll figure out exactly what to do with it once I get some programming into it

I could make it go with keyboard control, kinda like a teleop kind of thing right now, but, that wouldn't be very satisfying, so I decided to install turtle ros, which kinda stopped the whole process until I can figure out this whole "hostapd" thing, so while I was working on that, it looks like I managed to get the turtle (hopefully it's a master) loaded on my laptop and I'll see what that does for me

Oooh, here's something that says "getting started". I'll click on that and see if anything good happens

Word of advice... Don't ever take my advice, I have no idea what I'm doing

Posted by: @robo-pi

Posted by: @starnovice

What program are you using to get that picture/programming in.

Not sure what you are asking here.   The picture of my program is just a screenshot of the program actually running.

You answered one of the questions I had, thank you, the other one is what IDE are you using?

Posted by: @triform

So ROS or Myrobotlab for you is a moot point! Nice job.

It very well may be.   In fact, I can't imagine how I could even use ROS in my architecture.   For example, how could ROS be used on my Voice Speaker and Voice Recognition routines?  There's nothing there to "subscribe" to.   I'm writing both end of the code from scratch.

Well, I say that I'm writing it from "scratch" but that's hardly true.  I'm using the Microsoft Speech Platform as the basis for my code.   In fact, I would love to set up a project associated with that where people could hopefully join in, learn, and contribute.   The Microsoft Speech Platform is an absolutely wonderful tool for creating an A.I. system that actually knows what it's hearing and saying.

This is accomplished by what is called a "GrammarBuilder".  This allows you to define various sets of words that the robot uses.   So in this sense you have full control over what words your robot can or cannot recognize.   The potential for using the GrammarBuilder in clever ways is basically unlimited.  I'd love to explain more about it here but this would be better done in a venue dedicated to that topic.

But yeah, my goal is to design an A.I. (an Artificial Idiot) ? 

So I have no interest in any software that is already attempting to play the role of A. I.   That would defeat my entire purpose. 

In fact, I was thinking of starting a thread on "Mission Statements for Robot Builders".   I might try to do that today, although I'm not sure what forum to post it in.   The idea is that not all robot builders have the same goals in mind.  Some people would be quite happy tossing together a robot kit that already does everything and appears to have some level of intelligence.  Even though they have no clue how it all works.  They just want a cool robot to show their friends or whatever.  That's fine.  There's nothing wrong with that.  But at the other end of the spectrum are robot builders who want to not only understand why their robot does things, but to be the programmer behind it so they can modify it and help it to evolve to become something better.

I'm definitely in the latter group.   So I have no interest in "ready-made systems" that I don't even know what's going on behind the scenes.  That's not going to fit in with my "Mission Statement".    My mission is to build an A.I. system where I, as the designer, have a full understanding of exactly what's going on behind the scenes.

Posted by: @starnovice

You answered one of the questions I had, thank you, the other one is what IDE are you using?

I'm writing the programs using C# for Windows Forms.   I use two different IDEs.  Although only one  is actually needed.

I use SharpDevelop 5.0 most of the time simply because it runs faster on my slow notebook computers. 

But sometimes I'll use Visual Studio 2017 Community  It runs a little slower on my computers, but has a few features that I sometimes like to use.   Nothing that I couldn't do without.  

In fact, if I made a video on how I wrote my Robot Overseer program I'd probably use Visual Studio 2017 for that just because more people are more likely to use that IDE over SharpDevelop.

I'd make a video on it, but I'm not sure if there is any interest in the video?

Posted by: @robo-pi

My mission is to build an A.I. system where I, as the designer, have a full understanding of exactly what's going on behind the scenes.

So my theory of just throwing a bunch of parts in a box and shaking it up to see what comes out isn't gonna work for you I guess