Getting Started with Tekkotsu on the iRobot Create

Preparation

  1. Assemble your Create/ASUS by following these simple instructions.

  2. Connect the Create to the charger and charge the battery.

  3. Read through the ASUS user's manual that comes with the ASUS Eee 900 PC.

  4. If you received your PC from the ARTSI Alliance or purchased it from RoPro Design, it has the Tekkotsu software pre-loaded, so all you need to do is set up your wireless connection. Otherwise, follow these ASUS setup instructions to install the software you need.

Taking Your Robot For a Test-Drive

  1. After the ASUS boots, type Control-Alt-T to bring up a terminal window. If desired, choose a larger font by holding down the Control key and right-clicking in the window.

  2. Disconnect the Create from the battery charger, then press the power button. The power light should give a brief multicolored flash and then turn solid green as the machine emits a short beep. The robot is now ready to talk to Tekkotsu via its serial cable.

  3. To run Tekkotsu, type the following in the terminal window on the ASUS: 
    cd ~/project
./tekkotsu-CREATE
    When Tekkotsu starts up you will hear a roaring sound.

  4. Type Control-Alt-T again to bring up another terminal window. Then cd to /usr/local/Tekkotsu/tools/mon and type ./ControllerGUI localhost to bring up a ControllerGUI menu.

  5. In the ControllerGUI window, click on the RawCam button and verify that you are getting camera images. Click on RawCam again to deactivate the RawCam viewer.

  6. Click on the "W" button to activate the Walk Remote Control. (The "H" and "A" buttons won't do anything on the Create, so stick with "W".) Click in the Walk Remote Control window to make the Create travel in that direction.

When you clicked on the Walk Remote Control above, the robot moved away from you, which probably made it hard to type. Wouldn't it be nice if you could sit at a nice comfortable workstation and control the robot remotely? To do that, you'll need to be able to run the ControllerGUI (but not all of Tekkotsu) on your workstation. Read on.

Controlling the Create From Your Linux Workstation

If you're running Windows, see the next section. Linux users should follow these steps:
  1. Verify that you have the Java JDK installed. If not, install it. On Ubuntu or Debian, this should work: 
    sudo apt-get install sun-java6-jdk sun-java6-fonts gsfonts-x11
  2. Download the Tekkotsu framework and compile the ControllerGUI by typing the following: 
    cd /usr/local
sudo cvs -d :pserver:anonymous@cvs.tekkotsu.org:/cvs checkout -P Tekkotsu
cd /usr/local/Tekkotsu/tools
sudo make
  3. Now you can run the ControllerGUI by typing the following:
    /usr/local/Tekkotsu/tools/mon/ControllerGUI hostname-or-ip
    In the above, hostname is the hostname of your ASUS notebook on your local network. If it does not have an assigned hostname, you can use the IP address. If you don't know the IP address, type /sbin/ifconfig to find it.

Controlling the Create from Windows

If you're using Windows, you will need to provide a Linux-style environment in order to run Tekkotsu. You can do this either by installing Cygwin, or by running Ubuntu under VirtualBox.

Once you have obtained a Linux shell, follow the directions in the preceding section to download Tekkotsu and compile the ControllerGUI.

It should also be possible to run the ControllerGUI under Windows, since it's written in Java, but we don't currently have a script for compiling for native Windows. If you write one, please share it.

Compiling Tekkotsu Behaviors On the ASUS

To compile a behavior on the ASUS, go through the following steps:
  1. Put the source code in your ~/project directory. For example, to compile the TapiaWander.h.fsm behavior, download the file onto the ASUS and put it in ~/project. To download you can use a web browser, or the "wget" program. Or, if the file is on your local network instead of the Web, you can use scp to copy it.

  2. Edit the file ~/project/UserBehaviors.h and put entries for the behavior in the two required places. In this example,you'd put a #include "TapiaWander.h" (leave out the ".fsm" part) near the beginning of the file, and a MENUITEM(TapiaWander) further down in the file.

  3. Make sure you are in the ~/project directory and type make. This will compile Tekkotsu, including your new behavior.

  4. When the make completes, type ./tekkotsu-CREATE to run Tekkotsu. The new behavior should show up in the ControllerGUI under the Mode Switch menu.

Troubleshooting

If you are having trouble getting your Create/ASUS robot to work, please see the troubleshooting guide.

Back to the main Create page

Dave Touretzky
Last modified: Sat Mar 14 10:44:10 EDT 2009