Rather regretting not having done a deep dive into programming environments for the Lego EV3 somewhat earlier, I came across the block.ly inspired OpenRobertaLab (code, docs) only a couple of days ago.
(Way back when , in the first incarnation of the OU Robotics Outreach Group, we were part of the original Roberta project which was developing a European educational robotics pack, so it’s nice to see it’s continued.)
OpenRobertaLab is a browser accessible environment that allows users to use block.ly blocks to program a simulated robot.
I’m not sure how easy it is to change the test track used in the simulator? That said, the default does have some nice features – a line to follow, colour bars to detect, a square to drive round.
The OU Robotlab simulator supported a pen down option that meant you could trace the path taken by the robot – I’m not sure if RobertaLab has a similar feature?
It also looks as if user accounts are available, presumably so you can save your programmes and return to them at a later date:
Account creation looks to be self-service:
OpenRobertaLab also allows you to program a connected EV3 robot running leJOS, the community developed Java programming environment for the EV3s. It seems that it’s also possible to connect to a brick running ev3dev to OpenRobertaLab using the robertalab-ev3dev connector. This package is preinstalled in ev3dev, although it needs enabling (and the brick rebooting) to run. ssh into the brick and then from the brick commandline, run:
sudo systemctl unmask openrobertalab.service
sudo systemctl start openrobertalab.service
Following a reboot, the Open Robertalab client should now automatically run and be available from the OpenRobertaLab menu on the brick. To stop the service / cancel it from running automatically, run:
sudo systemctl stop openrobertalab.service
sudo systemctl mask openrobertalab.service
If the brick has access to the internet, you should now be able to simply connect to the OpenRobertalab server (lab.open-roberta.org).
Requesting a connection from the brick gives you an access code you need to enter on the OpenRobertaLab server. From the robots menu, select connect...:
and enter the provided connection code (use the connection code displayed on your EV3):
On connecting, you should hear a celebratory beep!
Note that this was as far as I got – Open Robertalab told me a more recent version of the brick firmware was available and suggested I installed it. Whilst claiming I may still be possible to run commands using old firmware, that didn’t seem to be the case?
As we well as accessing the public Open Robertalab environment on the web, you can also run your own server. There are a few dependencies required for this, so I put together a Docker container psychemedia/robertalab (Dockerfile) containing the server, which means you should be able to run it using Kitematic:
(For persisting things like user accounts, and and saved programmes, there should probably be a shared data container to persist that info?)
A random port will be assigned, though you can change this to the original default (1999):
The simulator should run fine using the IP address assigned to the docker machine, but in order to connect a robot on the same local WiFi network to the Open RobertaLab server, or connect to the programming environment from another computer on the local network, you will need to set up proter forwarding from the Docker VM:
See Exposing Services Running in a Docker Container Running in Virtualbox to Other Computers on a Local Network for more information on exposing the containerised Open Robertalab server to a local network.
On the EV3, you will need to connect to a custom Open Robertalab server. The settings will be the IP address of the computer on which the server is running, which you can find on a Mac from the Mac Network settings, along with the port number the server is running on:
So for example, if Kitematic has assigned the port number 32567, and you didn’t otherwise change it, and you host computer IP address is 192.168.1.86, you should connect to: 192.168.1.86:32567 from the Open Robertalab connection settings on the brick. On connecting, you will be presented with a pass code as above, which you should connect to from your local OpenRobertaLab webpage.
Note that when trying to run programmes on a connected brick, I suffered the firmware mismatch problem again.
OUseful.Info, the blog... 