WIT Applied Robotics Lab, Blue Technology

 Blog Entry #8 - Dylan Haley - How to implement and setup Ardupilot Required Hardware Pixhawk Raspberry Pi Router Required Software  QGroundControl Raspberry Pi Companion Computer software  Ardupilot (ArduRover/Sub/Copter etc.) Installing Companion Computer Software Insert a microSD with a minimum of 4GB into a laptop.  Download and install the Companion software image from the ardusub website        (https://www.ardusub.com/quick-start/installing-companion.html) Download and install Etcher. Open Etcher and select the image file and your SD card. Click 'Flash' The SD card is now ready to go into the raspberry Pi Installing QGroundControl Go to the ardusub website to find the download link for QGroundControl (https://www.ardusub.com/quick-start/installing-qgc.html) After it is installed open QGroundControl. Installing Ardupilot Open QGroundControl, select 'Vehicle setup' and then select 'Firmware'. Connect the pixhaw...

 Some cool videos of usv test and path planning robot test https://fb.watch/de0TT5wA4A/

After deciding to no longer use XinaBox to send data from the MicroBit to the cloud, I began exploring the possible route of Beebotte, a publish/subscribe IoT platform. B eebotte is a platform that provides key building blocks to power Internet of Things (IoT) and real-time connected applications. A rich and easy to use API accelerates the development of connected applications and reduces the total cost and time to market.  To use Beebotte alongside the MicroBit, I needed DFRobot's micro:IoT expansion board. This expansion board comes with its own MakeCode extension, microIoT, which allows for easy setup and communication. Along with the MakeCode extension, the board has a n  OLED screen, p ower supply by li-ion battery or external power,  and an  Integrated Wi-Fi IoT module. MQTT The MicroIoT extension has a block specifically designed for MQTT communication, however, the dropdown menu for selecting which server you wish to send to does not display Beebotte. To fin...

 This week Jason the team leader asked me  to work on moving the thrusters using a green ball. Processes involved in this  Setup of serial communication between the microbit and roborealm Setup in roborealm  Setup of serial communication between the microbit and roborealm Steps involved  Connected the microbit to a pc using a usb cable  Serial communication module Steps involved Changed the port number to COM3  which is the port the microbit is communicating on Changed the baudrate to 115200  Makecode Onstart block Steps involved Placed the set radio group block from the radio extension and set it to 1 to communicate with the microbit that controls the thrusters. Placed the serial redirect to usb block from the serial extension ( which in this case will redirect the serial communication between the microbit and roborealm to usb ) under the set radio group block .  Placed the serial write line block from the serial extension and changed the va...

  Introduction In this blog, I am going to discuss my work on attempting to connect Beebotte to Ubidots, to get a dashboard showing all the data directly from Beebotte. I have had some previous experience working with Beebotte in this lab which I detail below, but to connect it to Ubidots there are various methods I attempted which I will detail later in this blog.  Previous Beebotte work Beebotte is a really useful technology and something that other members of the team had been looking at for a few weeks by now. Personally, I had only run into it when working with a team member on the Microbits and Xinabox to see if we could get a connection from Xinabox to Beebotte.  This made me familiar with Beebotte but my experience level started on a lower level initially with the technology.  Research As with everything, my first step in tackling the Beebotte to Ubidots connection was seeing if anybody had previously done it before, or done anything similar before. I took to...

 Introduction This blog post is going to be revolved around the mental health side of working in projects and going through college. I'm going to focus on three "healthy head habits" that I have experienced and have a some knowledge about. College can be a very stressful time period in general, especially due to the fact my course is primarily continuous assessment based. Additionally trying to manage a job alongside being in 4th year of college is something I found very challenging at times but worked through by using some mental health tips that work for me. The area's I'm going to tackle in this blog post are:  Time Management Setting Goals and Understanding Limits Talking  Time Management This year, my time management has been the most important aspect to keeping my mental health in check. Allowing myself to plan ahead what I'm going to do and when I'm going to do it, doesn't seem like something that would impact your mental health but I think it...

 Blog #7 - Dylan Haley - Wireless Ardupilot and Frame update  After researching into making the pixhawk connection to the QGroundControl application on the laptop wireless we decided the best way would be to connect the companion computer directly to the router using the LAN cable and then connecting the laptop to the routers WiFi. Although it wasn't as simple as it sounded. Due to the companion computer being configured to have a specific static IP address, and searching for a specific IP address for the laptop we had to reconfigure our router.  The router was changed to assign different IP addresses in order for the companion computer and laptop to communicate with each other. Once the connection was established we executed a small test. First we connected outputs 1 and 2 on the pixhawk to an oscilloscope in order to check each one worked as expected. This is shown in the video below. After connecting the motors to the pixhawk we tested the motors using the motor test i...