This next workshop will teach you how to control an Arduino from a webpage, as well as read data from the Arduino to display in the page. The topics in this workshop will be the basis for the following workshop, which will be to create a new pan/tilt webcam for the robotics lab that can be controlled from our website!

Calendar Event Posting (Link)

The following examples will be covered in this workshop to demonstrate these topics:

1. Create a webpage that allows a user to send text back to the server to be output as Text-To-Speech locally. This introduces the concepts needed for doing more with a webpage than just displaying information.
2. Create a webpage that enables the user to turn on/off a relay hooked up via an Arduino. A rotating party light will be hooked up to the relay that the web page will be able to control.
3. Setup a light sensing circuit to read from the Arduino and output to the webpage. This will show how information can go both ways and will serve as the basis for a widget on the MDRC website to show whether the lab is open or not.

After the information overload of the previous workshop this one will be run differently by teaching the ideas through the above examples.

If you were interested in our ROS workshop today, but couldn't make it, you're in luck! We're live streaming the presentation over at http://livestream.com/mdrc

The presentation itself is available from Introduction to Robot Operating System since you probably will not be able to read most slides from the video.

There is a chat available so feel free to ask questions!

We're just getting setup now, but we'll be starting the presentation at about 2PM

Calender Entry

Presentation

This workshop will be a guided tour through tutorials found on the ROS.org website. The workshop presentation itself is planned to last about an hour, with open lab time afterwards to get help with any projects.

  The presentation will cover the following topics:

• Configuring ROS
• ROS messaging structure and topics
• Topic publishers and subscribers
• ROS Services and clients
• Writing a ROS node
• Using ROS with an Arduino via the rosserial stack
• Configuring ROS to work across several systems
• How to run ROS at boot

Note that installation of ROS is not covered. If you would like to follow along with the demonstrations you will have to have ROS installed on your laptop ahead of time. The full install of ROS is several GB and can take some time. If you need help getting ROS installed there will be ample time after the presentation.

The presentation and demonstrations will all be written in C++. However, ROS also supports Python out of the box and a quick perusal of the ROS.org tutorials will explain the specific syntax. Examples will be demonstrated on PCs, a Beagleboard, and an Arduino.

After the workshop, the presentation will be available on this website. We will also attempt to record the workshop and get that posted in a relatively timely manner. We hope to see you there and be sure to ask questions!

 Please bear with us while we work on a new website!

This new site will enable us to better share what we're doing with you. So stay tuned to keep up to date with out projects.

If you have any suggestions on the theme as it develops, be sure to head to the Forums and create a post under the Website/Style topic. If there are specific features you would like to see added, post under the Website/Features topic (Duh!).