Hello community! I'm a computer science teacher about to hold a two-day session for my high school students using a collect of Byttle robots, and we're so excited! We're using the kits supplied by Petoi, and it's going to be a great event! There are a few advanced robotics students that immediately wanted to know the software we'll be using, so I've been toying around with OpenCat to see if it's usable with other four-limbed robots and non-Nyboards.
I'm hoping someone might be able to point me in the right direction for how to best/easiest customize OpenCat to work with an Arduino nano compatible board. I'm able to load the software just fine, but the Serial Manager loops on the question for resetting joints, and I receive two prompts to change my model and board settings and a second prompt to set EPPROM. I'm new to robotics, so I'm not sure what these mean.
In OpenCat.ino, I set the board to the latest version for NyBoard by uncommenting the line. Should I be setting something different since I'm not technically using a NyBoard? And the model I selected was Nyblle since it's closest to what I'm trying to do.
I've scoured the documentation and online, and I'd appreciate any tips or resources folks might have! Thank you!
Hi friends! I had a chance to connect with some of the more advanced robotics students, and they are very keen to try this out! I'm still very new here, but I'd love to support their experimentation if I could. So far I've been able to upload the new branch of the OpenCat for nano, and I'm getting what appears to be solid messages in the Serial Monitor. I'd love if anyone could validate the hardware I've put together from some of the pieces we have on hand. I have an arduino nano connected to a PCA9685, and MG90S micro servos hooks up to a (mostly) 3d printed nybble to test it all out. Where I'm stuck is sending commands to the servos to see if they'll move. When I try to type a command into the Serial Monitor, only one letter seems to get typed. I'm attaching pictures of the set up. (I've tried changing the way I connect the nano to the PCA board, but I keep coming back to connecting Nano <> PCA via a4 to SDA and a5 to SCC) I totally realize this is a huge ask to help us learn here, so please don't go to any trouble! My kiddos are hecka smart and I'm sure can tinker, too!
THank you all so much! I will give these a try in the next couple of days and circle back! Jason, thank you for bringing attention back to the key components. We did make sure to account for those compared to the NyBoard but I will confirm with the students! And Rongzhong Lo thank you for the new branch and I'll check it out and pass it along too!
Arduino Nano has a smaller flash size because its USB driver takes about 2KB of extra storage. Besides, the NyBoard has I2C EEPROM and MPU6050 to work with the code.
I've pushed a new branch, "nano," that avoids using the I2CEEPROM. It's verified to take about 99% of flash and can make the robot walk. You must comment out the #define GYRO_PIN line in OpenCat.h if you don't wire the MPU6050. PCA9685 is also mandatory for servo movements.
Note the key components on the NyBoard, such as the 6-Axis IMU MPU6050, PCA9685 and the PWM servo ports, EEPROM, etc.
For more information, please refer to the instructions of NyBoard in the Petoi Doc Center:
https://docs.petoi.com/nyboard/nyboard-v1_0
https://docs.petoi.com/nyboard/nyboard-v1_1-and-nyboard-v1_2