Welcome to the RSSC blog

Hello everyone,

This is the RSSC blog, a place for folks to post projects that include HOW TOs, tutorials, writeups and other information about robotics projects from different people in the club. 

For instance by clicking on the Add Image button on the toolbar, I can add a picture of my semi leaf platform. 

Based on Alex's demonstration of Rocky today, I realized that I have been making the RC mode FAR TO DIFFICULT!  I have been loading the control board up with decoding traditional RC gear, when I could have just gone through windows using a wireless controller! DOH!!!!!  Even though it isn't broke, I will still fix it.  Alex talked about the cordless logitech rumble pad as a robot controller.  I can link to this item by selecting some text the link button and pasting in the link.    Here is a link to microsofts instructions on reading the joystick using the directX api.

Finally, If I were to do it the easy way,  I would use the pygame library and the following code:

import pygame  #from pygame import joycontroller, event

pygame.init()  #Initialize the pygame callbacks and engine

controller = pygame.joystick.Joystick(0)  #Attach controller to the first joycontroller in the system

controller.init() #Initialize the controller

print 'Initialized Joystick : %s' % controller.get_name()

try:  #Start a loop

    while True:

        pygame.event.pump()  #Get events from the controller

        for i in range(0, controller.get_numaxes()): 

            if controller.get_axis(i) < -0.1 or controller.get_axis(i) > 0.1: #If the controller is not in the center print where 

                print 'Axis %i reads %.2f' % (i, controller.get_axis(i))

        for i in range(0, controller.get_numbuttons()): #Display any buttons that are pressed

            if controller.get_button(i) != 0:

                print 'Button %i reads %i' % (i, controller.get_button(i))

except KeyboardInterrupt:  #If the initiallization failed

    controller.quit()  #Disconnect the controller

Now all that remains is to tie the joystick events to the PID controller that runs the bot.  I can use the same serial commands that already runs the bot!  

This post is also available at my website :www.profmason.com