Rover 5 + Raspberry Pi

[philippe]

I have just received my new Rover 5 with Explorer PCB and Seeeduino.

On the basis of the proposed assembly for the wall follower (http://www.dawnrobotics.co.uk/content/rover_5_seeeduino_kit.pdf), the robot works correctly.

But I wish to assemble the rover with a RPi as Alan made it at Digimakers event. I don't find in its tutos (excellent) the detail of assemby. I understand the plan on part 2. It's very clear but as I'm beginner with robots, I need more explanations.

How can I to connect the RPi, the mini driver? Are there pictures, plans? Which power supply for the RPi and where on the Rover?

Thanks for your response and sorry for my very bad english.

[Alan]

Hi Philippe,

Thank you for your question, and your english is excellent, much better than my French.

I'm assuming that you're trying to recreate what we did in this blog post. Although, all of the source code is there for that, it's probably a bit over complicated, and definitely not that well documented, as it was very much thrown together for the workshop we were teaching.

One thing I've realised since writing the blog post is that you don't really need the mini driver (although it's still a very useful board), everything can actually be done with the Seeeduino. The basic hardware configuration is that you place the Raspberry Pi on the robot, and then power it with a USB powerbank. Something like this one. Then you connect the Seeeduino to the Pi using the USB cable that comes in the kit.

That essentially is all there is to it on the hardware side. You now need to write a motor control sketch for the Seeeduino, that listens for serial commands that come from a control program written for the Pi. There are examples of both the sketch and the control program (written in Python) linked from this blog post, and our Pi Camera Robot blog post.

Does that make sense? Also, how confident do you feel with Arduino programming, and/or Python programming? As I can provide further pointers there if needed.

All the best.

Regards

Alan

[philippe]

Hi Alan,

Thanks for your reply. I know it's very difficult the sunday for an English

I can see that your hardware configuration is simpler than what I imagined.

Now I must work on this project and, I hope, in a few weeks I show you the result.

Thanks you.

Philippe

[Alan]

Thanks for your reply. I know it's very difficult the sunday for an English

Lol, yes, and I haven't even had my roast beef yet today.

Glad to see that you're on your way with your robot. I very much look forward to seeing the results.

Regards

Alan

[kenjara]

Hi guys,

I have just ordered the Rover 5 and can't wait to start working on it.

After looking at your blog posts (specifically the one with the Pi camera and controlling the robot over wifi) my first question was also how easy it would be to integrate the PI into the rover model.

After getting the core kit up and running thing I would like to be able to do is control it remotely and integrate the PI to expand its capabilities.

I have no experience with Pi's yet but I am a senior programmer and like to play with remote control electronic kits as a hobby.

I have some experience with c and python.

[Alan]

Hi Shane,

Thank you for buying a Rover 5 kit. Hopefully it should have arrived by now so you can get stuck in.

Apologies for the delay in approving this post, I still haven't worked out how to set up a notification for that.

Anyway, it'd be great to hear how you get on with assembling the robot and integrating the Pi.

Regards

Alan

[kenjara]

Hi Alan,

My kit arrived Friday but I had to pick it up from the post office Saturday. I can not believe how fast it arrived.

After looking at the shields available for the Ardunio boards I think I will look at intergrating as much as possible with them before looking at the Pi.

I installed the Ardunio software on my Mac and made some sample code Sunday night to make sure the Seeeduino was working.

I was surprised at how easy it was to set up and use.

Thanks,

Shane