irmingard/sphero-flocking

Requirements

• Ubuntu 12.04
• Bluetooth
• One or more Sphero 2.0 robots

Installing Ubuntu 12.04

• Download Ubuntu 12.04 image (http://releases.ubuntu.com/12.04/ubuntu-12.04.5-desktop-amd64.iso)

• Create a bootable flash drive and put Ubuntu image on it (e.g. use Win32 Disk Imager: https://sourceforge.net/projects/win32diskimager/)

• Boot from flash drive

• Install Ubuntu (wipe Windows or install alongside it)

Software

• Required: NetLogo for Linux (https://ccl.northwestern.edu/netlogo/5.3.1/)

• Recommended IDE: PyCharm Community for Linux (https://www.jetbrains.com/pycharm/download/#section=linux)

Middleware: ROS

• Follow the instructions on (http://wiki.ros.org/groovy/Installation/Ubuntu) for Ubuntu 12.04 (Precise) and do the Desktop-Full Install

Sphero driver

• Download Sphero ROS driver (https://github.com/mmwise/sphero_ros/archive/groovy-devel.zip)

• Extract ZIP

• Open Terminal

• Enter in Terminal (adapt path if ZIP was downloaded to somewhere else):

  cd Downloads/spheros_ros-groovy-devel/sphero_driver python setup.py build sudo python setup.py install

Prepare Spheros

• Fully charge Spheros
• Download the Sphero Android app (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=orbotix.sphero&hl=en) and update the firmware for all Spheros
• Pair your Spheros via Bluetooth and write down their MAC addresses
• Update the MAC addresses values in the bidirectional.py to match your own MAC addresses

Prepare environment

• The standard environment is 250 x 250 cm. You will also have to measure out the robot's starting positions that are set in the NetLogo model.

Start model run

• Open bidirectional.nlogo in NetLogo
• Open bidirectional.py in PyCharm
• Run bidirectional.py
• Follow Python console instructions

Troubleshooting

• Stop everything, turn Bluetooth off and then back on