Course notes: Another Arduino based robot car

Preamble

Notes from Robotics Training LESSON 1: An Introduction to Robotics for Absolute Beginners

Yet another robot car, based on Arduino. This project uses the Elegoo robot car.

It’s interesting to compare this one with the Murtaza car projects. The movement functions are more sophistimicated on this project.

Course notes on TTB: ROBOTIC TUTORIAL FOR BEGINNERS

Note that this course code is for V3 of the Elegoo car. V3+ and V4 will not work, without some modification.

HOWTO: Port serialplot to OS X

Preamble

A brief HOWTO explaining the OS X porting process for hyOzd/serialplot.

For a detailed voyage of discovery, see Porting serialplot to OS X.

This application is not to be confused with pvd/SerialPlot (note the capitalisation), a Qt application written explicitly for OS X, see Compiling Qt SerialPlot (for OS X).

Note: Using OS X 10.13.6 High Sierra

Application and script: greenonline/serialplot_OS_X_port

Porting serialplot to OS X

TL;DR

If you want a quick and easy HOWTO, then see HOWTO: Port serialplot to OS X. It is a must less painful read.

Preamble

A (now not so – it’s grown exponentially) brief HOW-TO for hyOzd/serialplot, which is for Windows/Linux – but which may compile and work on OS X. That is the idea anyway.

As it turned out, compiling and building was the easy part. Bundling the Qt and Qwt frameworks into the application turned out to be the mind-blowing part.

Not to be confused with pvd/SerialPlot, a Qt application written explicitly for OS X, see Compiling Qt SerialPlot (for OS X).

Note: Using OS X 10.13.6 High Sierra

Application and script: greenonline/serialplot_OS_X_port

HOWTO: Compiling Qt SerialPlot (for OS X)

Preamble

A brief HOW-TO for pvd/SerialPlot, a Qt application for OS X.

Not to be confused with hyOzd/serialplot, which is for Windows/Linux. For porting that application to OS X, see HOWTO: Port serialplot to OS X.

To see a diary log of the same project, SerialPlot – a Qt adventure on OS X

SerialPlot – a Qt adventure on OS X

TL;DR

To save yourself a lot of pain, the pain that I went through, just read Compiling Qt SerialPlot (for OS X), which is a compact summary and HOW-TO of the details below.

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Preamble

This is probably going to be one of those projects that never ever gets properly finished, but that teaches a lot along the way. [Edit – I managed to actually finish it!]

First some background: Whilst following Paul McWhorter’s IMU BNO055 course, I had a requirement for a serial plotter application, one that was better than the paltry offering built into the Arduino IDE (it autoscales too much and isn’t particularly configurable). In the video course, SerialPlot (hyOzd/serialplot) is used, a nicely functional Qt based Windows and Linux application, but there is no OS X port (typical!). [Edit – there is now an OS X port, greenonline/serialplot_OS_X_port. See also Porting serialplot to OS X]

I had previously found (sebnil/RealtimePlotter), which is a nice Processing based plotter but… well, maybe I was being overly fussy, but I really wanted a native application.

Now, porting the fully functional SerialPlot from Linux to OS X could be a direction to go, but… meh…

Then, after more searching, I found a Github repository for another serial plotter, confusingly with the same name, pvd/SerialPlot, for OSX that is also, ironically, Qt based. However, the last commit was in 2011, so it is not being actively maintained.

Knowing nothing about Qt, I thought I’d have a go at getting pvd/SerialPlot working… on an old 2010 MBP running High Sierra (10.13.6), with Xcode 9.4.

WIP Status

Project builds and application is created. Frameworks bundled.

Course notes: IMU BNO055

Preamble

Course notes from 9-Axis IMU LESSON 1: Introduction to Nine Axis Sensors and Inertial Measurement Units with Arduino

Note that the serialplot application used in this course is now available for OS X, at greenonline/serialplot_OS_X_port. See Porting serialplot to OS X for more details.

Robot Car – Jetson Nano and Arduino

Preamble

Notes from INTRODUCTION TO SELF DRIVING CAR USING JETSON NANO (2020) and the rest of the series

Switching between windows in the Arduino IDE on OS X

Preamble

The OS X version of the Arduino IDE annoyingly doesn’t have a Window menu, through which you could select which sketch Window has the focus.

So if you have multiple sketch windows open, one or more of which are full screen, then they are constantly obscuring each other and you find yourself having to constantly move windows back and forth, and/or minimising and maximising windows just to get at the correct window – which rapidly becomes a right pain in the arse.

Course notes: Robot hand gesture control

Preamble

Notes from Robot Arm Arduino Tutorial | Gesture Controlled (Part 2)

Github: Robot-Arm-Gesture-Control (Python and Arduino code)

Virtual Arduino serial comms

Preamble

While working on Telemetry Viewer, see Java grapher for Arduino serial monitor, as I didn’t have a working Arduino, I wondered if I could fake some incoming serial comms so that it appeared that there was an Arduino connected which was sending sensor data.

I mean, how hard can it be? Surely using the UNIX underbelly of OS X, with a couple of redirections and pipes, it must be easy, right? Well, no, not so easy…