CUBOTino autonomous

This repo contains the relevant files for ....

How to make CUBOTino autonomous: A small, 3D printed, Rubik's cube solver robot

Further robot info at: https://www.instructables.com/CUBOTino-Autonomous-Small-3D-Printed-Rubiks-Cube-R/

An impression of the robot: https://youtu.be/dEOLhvVMcUg and https://youtu.be/YV-g_3STsBo

This is forked from the git repo made by heneault (thank you !!!), and updated to latest files versions.

This git repo simplifies the download of the individual files and automates as much a possible the deployment to the Raspberry Pi

This installation has proved to work on different Raspberry Pi models; Please report in case you experience issues.

How to use it:

Flash your SD card according to the procedure in the document here , Chapter 7, Step1 to Step3
Put the sd card in the pi and power it. You can monitor the boot process if you connect an hdmi monitor to it but it is not essential.
Try to connect to the Raspberry Pi via SSH. On Windows you can use Putty. On linux and mac you can type directly:

ssh pi@cubotino.local

If you can't reach the pi like this, you will have to scan your network to find the IP to use
After you are connected via ssh, type the following commands in the shell:

git clone https://github.com/AndreaFavero71/cubotino.git
cd cubotino/src
chmod +x install/setup.sh
sudo ./install/setup.sh

Make sure the script runs without error until the end. It should ask you to reboot. Type 'y' and hit enter.
If the question "Reboot (y/n)" does't appear, them the installation is facing issues; Try to fix the errors, and run the script again.
If the question "Reboot (y/n) does appear, You should get the proper environment after the reboot.

Build the robot:

Follow the instructions (saved at /doc folder)

Tuning the servos position via GUI (via VNC):

cd ~/cubotino/src
source .virtualenvs/bin/activate
python Cubotino_T_servos_GUI.py

Executing manually

From a shell, you can run the main python script like this:

cd ~/cubotino/src
source .virtualenvs/bin/activate
python Cubotino_T.py

of course, you can replace Cubotino_T.py by any other python scripts as mentioned in the documentation.

Enabling autostart

When everything is tuned and you want to autostart the software automatically on reboot, just type :

    sudo crontab -e

select the nano editor '1' then go to the last line of the window and remove the first '#' character of the line . This uncomment the startup script that launches cubotino on startup. You can reboot after to test it.

VNC connection

You can always connect with ssh. If you prefere VNC you can download the RealVNC client (this is the one I use). You just have that start it like this:

vncviewer cubotino.local

It will ask for the credential. Use 'pi' and the same password you use for ssh. You should have a desktop version in this way

Check out the "How_to_make ... .pdf" document (at /doc folder) for further info.

Please leave a feedback if you build it

I hope many of you will decide to build your own CUBOTino, and that you'll enjoy it as much much as I did.
I hope you will also post an "I Made it", on the Instructables site of this project (link above);
I can ensure you, seeing a new born CUBOTino makes me feel very well 🙂

AndreasK79/cubotino