Fun with Surveyor

The following robofile scripts propose some fun functionality when RoboRealm is used with the Surveyor SRV Blackfin. You can use these scripts as examples of what can be done and for a starting point for your own projects.

Note that RoboRealm runs on your PC and communicates to the SRV over the 802.11 wireless protocol. This means that you will see what the SRV sees on your PC screen.

Keyboard Driving Want to just drive your SRV around using your PC keyboard? Try this robofile out to understand how to trigger movements based on keypresses in RoboRealm.

Joystick Driving If the keyboard is not your desired interface try the joystick control instead. The joystick is superior to the keyboard driver as it can specify different speeds based on the tilt/pan of the joystick. This allows finer control over your SRV than just using keypresses.

Chasing Light A natural behavior of most animals is to avoid or target light. For example, after a pigeon accdentally flew into our building it kept trying to fly up towards the ceiling and bumping into the overhead fluorescent lights. It would determine that the way was blocked and would try the next light in an effort to fly towards the light (assumed sunlight) and escape the confines of the building.

Chasing a Red Ball A simple example of how to use the SRV to steer towards a simple ball object.

Chasing Movement Detecting movement is also a useful behavior for a robot to have. The issue with mobile robots is how to remove the movement caused by the robot versus what it moving independently.

Finding a Bullseye Target Thinking about an indicator of a homebase for the SRV? A bullseye has some nice properties that can easily be exploited to extract it out from a scene even when moving.

Line Following A robotics 101 project that most folks first try with their robot in the line following routine. Here we use the SRV and its onboard camera to follow a black line as best we can.

Want more? Check out the videos on YouTube that demonstrate other capabilities of RoboRealm.