Need some quick testing

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I've been (as I've had the chance) rewriting the software, Botd,  that
allows control of the robots here in my office from the web in
preparation for general release under the GPL or a BSD license.

I have at this point a very preliminary first cut, and would appreciate
it if any of you could drop by and do some brief testing:

http://robot.swampgas.com:8081

The interface is hastily written in javascript and has NUMEROUS
shortcomings, but I'm mainly interested in trying to get a feel for the
range of browsers that it will work with (I've tested it with FF 1.5, IE
6, and Mozilla 1.7), as well as general stabilty. The previous interface
was in Java, but I've dropped support for that interface (for now anyway
-- really it would be easy enough to write an interface in any language
that can do http requests).

While a "sessionful" mode is supported, the current mode is free-for-all
control, and only one robot is curently online. This should change in
the near future.

To run it, you'll need a reasonably modern browser with javascript
support turned on. Cookies are used to save your nickname, but are not
required.

That's it -- please email me if you have any comments or questions at
the reply address in this posting (you'll need to de-obfuscate the
address first).

Thanx in advance -- tAfkaks
--
(Replies: cleanse my address of the Mark of the Beast!)

Coauthor with Dennis Clark of "Building Robot Drive Trains".
Buy several copies today!

Re: Need some quick testing

A quick followup: the scrolling window used for chat and status messages
  has some known issues with older FF versions (prior to 1.5) and
Mozilla 1.7x. I probably need a better approach than using a styled
read-only textarea -- suggestions are welcome for drop-in replacements.

Cheers -- tAfkaks

--
(Replies: cleanse my address of the Mark of the Beast!)


Coauthor with Dennis Clark of "Building Robot Drive Trains".
Buy several copies today!

Re: Need some quick testing

Putting the wood board on the top of your ladder was a very wise thing to
do.
Do you have any touch sensor? I tried to open (the bathroom?) door but I
couldn't... I was able to see myself on the mirror though... Very nice.

Cheers

Padu



Re: Need some quick testing


The robot you were driving uses sonar, IR ranging, and as a last resort
stall detection. If the door is open, you can usually use "cruise" to
have the robot automatically thread it's way through.

I have drop-off sensors for the stairs as well, but my confidence in
them performing 100% pefectly is, well, limited, thus the board.

--
(Replies: cleanse my address of the Mark of the Beast!)

Teleoperate a roving mobile robot from the web:
http://www.swampgas.com/robotics/rover.html

Coauthor with Dennis Clark of "Building Robot Drive Trains".
Buy several copies today!

Re: Need some quick testing



Any chance of decreasing the turning angle, perhaps

Left (first) 15 deg
Left (second) another 30 deg
Left (third) another 45 deg

Any other commend resets to 15 deg

Or a slow [forward + left ] and [forward + right]

Would make initial navigation a little easier for me.

*** Posted via a free Usenet account from http://www.teranews.com  ***

Re: Need some quick testing

[snip]

Fairly soon, the turning radius will be variable via a slider from 0-90
degrees in either direction -- I realize this is a major irritation.

I'm really testing more for stability of the server side software and
basic usability at this point. I'll post a note here when the variable
turn feature is working.

Thnx for the feedback -- m

--
(Replies: cleanse my address of the Mark of the Beast!)

Teleoperate a roving mobile robot from the web:
http://www.swampgas.com/robotics/rover.html

Coauthor with Dennis Clark of "Building Robot Drive Trains".
Buy several copies today!

Re: Need some quick testing

[snip]

Rotation  is now controlled via a slider. You can rotate for 0-90
degrees in either direction by adjusting the slider control left ot right.

Cheers -- tAfkaks

--
(Replies: cleanse my address of the Mark of the Beast!)

Teleoperate a roving mobile robot from the web:
http://www.swampgas.com/robotics/rover.html

Coauthor with Dennis Clark of "Building Robot Drive Trains".
Buy several copies today!

Re: Need some quick testing


That's much easier to drive.  Had no issues.  Nice collection of
books...I was browsing while you were away. :-)

Shawn

Re: Need some quick testing

Hi Michael,

On Tue, May 09, 2006 at 08:22:03AM -0500, The Artist Formerly Known as Kap'n
Salty wrote:


Drat - it is offline!  I was going to give you a test out using the
Safari browser.  I'll check back later.

-Brian
--
Brian Dean
ATmega128 based MAVRIC controllers
http://www.bdmicro.com/

Re: Need some quick testing


That was fun...nice job.  Worked well for me with Firefox.  I look
forward to slider.  Tried to knock on your chair to get your attention.
  It would be great to have a text to speech interface for it so we
could talk to you through the bot.

Shawn

Re: Need some quick testing


It's there -- just haven't added it into the web page yet.


--
(Replies: cleanse my address of the Mark of the Beast!)

Teleoperate a roving mobile robot from the web:
http://www.swampgas.com/robotics/rover.html

Coauthor with Dennis Clark of "Building Robot Drive Trains".
Buy several copies today!

Re: Need some quick testing


Very cool...I promise to say nice things.....yeah right.  ;-)


Shawn

Re: Need some quick testing


Just tried it for a few seconds -- very nice!


--
Joseph J. Pfeiffer, Jr., Ph.D.       Phone -- (505) 646-1605
Department of Computer Science       FAX   -- (505) 646-1002
New Mexico State University          http://www.cs.nmsu.edu/~pfeiffer

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