I want my students to use Enchanting a derivative of Scratch to program Mindstorm NXT robots to drive a pre-programmed course, follow a line and avoid obstacles. (Two state, five state and proportional line following.) Is Enchanting developed enough for middle school students to program these behaviors?
I'm the lead developer on Enchanting, and the answer is: Yes, definitely.
The video demoing Enchanting 0.0.4 shows how to make a proportional line follower (and you could extend it to use a PID controller, if you wish). If you download the latest version, 0.2.2, it includes a sample showing a two-state line follower (and you can see a video and download code here). You, or with some instruction / playing around, a middle-schooler, can readily create a program to do n-states, and, especially if you follow a behaviour-oriented approach, you can avoid obstacles at the same time.
As far as I know, yes and no.
What Scratch does with its sensor board, Lego Wedo, and the S4A - Scratch for Arduino - version as well as, I believe, with NXT is basically use its remote sensor protocol - it exchanges messages on TCP port 42001.
A client written to interface that port with an external system allows communication of messages and sensor data. Scratch can pick up sensor state and pass info to actuators, every 75ms according to the S4A discussion.
But that isn't the same as programming the controller - we control the system remotely, which is already very nice, but we're not downloading a program in the controller (the NXT brick) that your robot can use to act independently when it is disconnected.
Have you looked into 12blocks? http://12blocks.com/ I have been using it for Propeller and it's great and it has the NXT option (I have not tested)
It's an old post, but I'll answer anyway.
Enchanting looks interesting, and seems to be still an active project.
I would actually take the original Scratch (1.4), as it's is more familiar and reliable.
It's easy to interface hardware with Scratch using the remote sensor protocol. I use a simple serial interface (over a USB-adapter) which provides 3 digital inputs and 3 digital outputs. With that, it's possible to implement projects such as traffic lite, light/water/heat-sensors, using only lets, resistors, reed-contacts, photo-transistors, switches, PTSs.
The costs are < 5$
For some motor-based projects like factory belts, elevator, etc. There is not much more required, a battery and a couple of transistors/relais/motor driver.
Related
I am trying to make some custom firmware for a MIDI controller (AKAI LPD8).
There is an STM32F102R8T6 chip in the unit.
I am trying to reach it with a programmer to wipe it, but it seems to not be responsive.
Some information and thing I have tried:
The firmware that came with the unit works, so the chip is not broken
Removed the components connected to the programming pins (PA9-PA10 and PA13-PA14)
I am able to pull BOOT0 high and have it not run the main program, but I am however not able to get a life sign using either an ST-Link2(clone) connected to PA13/14, nor a USB to serial adapter connected to PA9/PA10, so I am not sure what mode it is in
The connection has been checked, and RX-TX etc is the correct way around (but also for the sake of trying it all, I reversed the connections as well...).
Tried both the STM32CubeProgrammer and stm32flash, but none connects.
I am actually not sure if AKAI have locked the chip in such a way that you cannot even do a full chip erase and use the chip for something new? The NRST pin is strangely not doing anything to the running of the firmware either when I try to pull it low.
Is there a way to reprogram these chips when they come off of a commercial product, or are they permanently locked?
Any solution/tips?
Many of the STM32 parts have "proprietary code read-out protection" (google PCROP) which but you might be lucky and they haven't enabled it in the option bytes. Read the documentation for that and the bootloader documentation and get a good idea of what you expect it to do if it is enabled and if it isn't.
If you have a scope, try watching the SWD/JTAG pins to see if there is any response from the device. (If you aren't even sure if it is in reset then scope the crystal if there is one).
If you haven't got a scope, you might be able to to verify what it is doing by seeing if it sets the pins and pull-resistors to how they would be expected to be in the bootloader mode, eg: UART TX should be high if it is enabled, even it it isn't transmitting anything. Put a strong pull-down (~1k) on there and see if it still reads high.
After hours of trying different ways of making it work (also tried the alternate mapping of the UART port), and probed the TX pin as suggested by Tom V to no avail, I have given up working on that specific chip and ordered an upgrade from the STM32F4 family instead to replace it with. A lot more power and useful peripherals.
A bit of a non-answer to the specific question. Frustrating to not have found out what was wrong (chip or approach) but being mindful of the sunk cost fallacy, I think it was best to just replace the chip with a fresh one and start development from there.
I have a 600W digital step up converter with broken STM8S103K3T6C and another that is currently working OK. Is there a way to copy (dump) firmware from the working one and upload it to the new chip. Since I have only one working, I have to be extra careful not to damage the working controller. I do have some basic experience with STM32, but I am grateful for any help I could get. I have a copy of ST-Link v2 programmer. Apparently (if there is a way), it has to be done via SWIM (which I don't nothing about, started reading few days ago). Not sure what is the proper way to start. Converter itself has UART pins at the right side of the board.
Thanks in advance.
if the chip is not locked, yes it's possible using SWIM interface. use STVP tool to extract firmware from the old one or to program it to the new one. it is bundled in a package called "ST toolset" for STM8 and downloadable from ST website. the SWIM needs 1 pin (plus reset if target uses that pin). despite that the STM8s hvae 3~5V supply, it's better to use 3.3V supply for it for the sake of the other circuitry. you can extract it even when the device is on, so there's no need to connect a supply pin from programmer to it.
After searching for a veeery long time (more then 3 months) in all the main places where to get info and reading the datasheet of the chip I would like to ask the STM32 specialists inhere if there is a example for using the ADC maybe with DMA from the arduino IDE. I did see some incomplete parts inhere and for other compiler/IDE environments. But maybe i did not strike the good luck of finding the right info (that even i can understand) yet for what i need.
Your help is much appreciated.
I want to sample audio data, one channel 30KHz plus, 12 bits and each time 16 samples are taken an interrupt to handle the data that is in an array.
I have seen the pigOscope code (it uses analogread) and the info about analogread where there is stated this command is not meant for higher sampling speeds So that got me sort of into conflict with myself .... Who can break me out of my endless brainloop .....?;
Greetings ... Eric.
I have seen the pigOscope code (it uses analogread)
I wrote the Pig-o-scope code, with a lot of input from others at stm32duinocom and if you take the time to read the code, which I will grant you is somewhat simplistic, you will discover that analogRead is only used to trigger. The code uses DMA to do the high speed transfer.
I completely agree with the comment that you dont't need the Arduino IDE, you could "borrow" the DMA code and tailor it to your needs. However if you want a quick and dirty coding and prototyping environment, then there is nothing wrong with using the Arduino IDE. Take a trip to the stm32duino.com site, and you will see that I along with a lot of the other developers use the Arduino IDE, and Eclipse, and Atollic, and roll our own batch files, use vi, etc etc.
It all depends on what you are trying to do, and in many cases using the Arduino IDE gets you to working result a lot faster than learning an entire new IDE, just for one task.
But then again, I'm firmly on the side of vi in the vi/emacs wars, so what the heck do I know. Just don't use nano. ;¬)
I am trying to perform Time Difference of Arrival in real-time using the PS3 Eye. Since it has a built-in 4 microphone array, I've successfully rearranged the array into a square array and cross-correlated the signals using MATLAB to obtain a relatively accurate TDOA algorithm. However, so far I've been recording the signal, saving the files (4 individual files for each microphone in the array), and then feeding those files into MATLAB to read after-the-fact.
My problem is: MATLAB doesn't recognize the PS3 Eye's microphones separately; it only recognizes it as a whole. So far, Audacity is one of the few programs that actually works well in doing so, but I am inexperienced in using the program and don't know its real-time capabilities. Anyone have suggestions as to how can I can perform real-time signal analysis in this manner? If using something else besides the PS3 Eye would work better, then I am open to suggestions. Thanks.
I know very little about MATLAB or PS3 eye, but various hardware microphones allow you to capture a single audio stream containing multiple (typically 2) channels. The audio data will come to you in frames, each frame containing a single sample for each channel.
I'm not really sure what you mean by "recognizes as a whole", but I assume you mean MATLAB is mixing the channels so that the device only produces one usable channel. If you can capture the channels to file, and they all originate from the same device (i.e. hardware clock), you should be fine except that this solution is not "realtime".
There is a similar discussion on Sound Exchange which ends up suggesting the Microcone. There are a variety of other products, from microphone arrays to digital mixers for analog mic sources, also, but your question seems to be mainly about how to get the data with software.
In short, make sure you are seeing a single device with multiple channels. This will ensure each channel uses the same hardware clock and will prevent drift issues.
This is just a wild guess as I don't know know about MATLAB real time input options.
Maybe try reaper ( http://www.reaper.fm/ ).. it has great multi track capabilities and you can extend it (I think the scripting language is python ). Nice documentation and third party contributions, OSC and Rewire support. So maybe you could think of routing the audio to reaper, doing some data normalization there in python and then route data to MATLAB.
Or you could use PURE DATA which is open source and very open, with lots of patches (basic processing units) that you could probably put together.
HTH
BTW I am in no way affiliated wit reaper or PD.
EDIT: you might also want to consider supercollider (http://supercollider.github.io/) or Chuck (http://chuck.cs.princeton.edu/)
Here's a lead, but I haven't been able to test it, yet.
On Windows, you can record a single 4 track ogg audio file from the Eye with Audacity (using the WASAPI driver selection).
As of 23 Jul 2014, the pa-wavplay for 32-bit and 64-bit MEX supports WASAPI. You will have to rebuild the PortAudio library to select the WASAPI interface as described here and get all four tracks in MatLab (in Windows).
Sadly, if you're not on Windows, I don't have any suggestions. Adjusting the PortAudio build might help, but I only know that WASAPI works with the Eye.
I need to develop the real-time application which can handle user's input (from some external control panel) as fast as possible and provide some output to LCD monitor (very fast as well).
To be more exact - I need to handle fixed-time interrupts (with period of 1ms) to recalculate internal model - with current state fetched from external control panel.
When internal model is changed i need to update a picture on LCD monitor (now I think the most proper way is to update on each interrupt). Also don't want any delays here.
What is the most suitable platform to implement it? And also which one is the most cost-effective?
I've heard about QNX, IntervalZero RTX, rtlinux but don't know the details and abilities of each one.
Thanks!
As far as the different OSs, I know QNX has very good "hard" real time and has been built & optimized from the ground up. It also now has Qt running on it (QNX 6.5) for full featured GUIness.
I have heard (2nd hand) anecdotal information that rtlinux is very close to hard realtime (guaranteed realtime), but it can sometimes be late if a driver (usually 3rd party) is not coded well. [This was from a RTOS vendor, so take it for what it is worth.]
As a design issue, I'd decouple the three separate operations into three threads with different priorities: one thread to fetch the data and set a semaphore that new data is ready, one thread to update the model and set a semaphore that the model is ready, and one thread to update the GUI. I would run the GUI thread at a much slower update rate. Most monitors are in the 60-120Hz range for updating. Why update faster than the data can be shown on the screen?