Sioux iRobot

Roomba pac-man

2009-11-09T16:38:00.002+01:00

I noticed on Engadget the following project:

http://pacman.elstonj.com

Maybe we can use this for inspiration? :-)

Windows Mobile 6.1.x Emulator Images

2009-06-18T13:17:00.002+02:00

There are separate Windows Mobile 6.1.x emulator images available for both Visual Studio 2005 and 2008.

You can download them here:

Windows Mobile 6.1 Emulator Images

Windows Mobile 6.1.4 Emulator Images

Presentation: Robot localisation and navigation

2009-03-24T17:41:00.007+01:00

During our last meeting, Dorieke gave the following presentation titled "Robot localisation and navigation".

You can download the complete presentation here.

iRobot Create handling plants

2009-03-23T12:34:00.003+01:00

Hi all,

I just came across a great post on Engadget, displaying an application of the iRobot Create.
http://www.engadget.com/...

Looks like they just stick a laptop on the back to do the processing.

Maurice

Fixed the eBox-2300 Wifi connector

2009-03-09T11:14:00.004+01:00

When we purchased the eBox-2300, its VIA VT6655 WiFi card was pre-installed. However, its connector has never been really solid. Time to fix it! I used this manual.

Windows Embedded & Co.

2008-12-05T11:26:00.003+01:00

Yesterday I showed a few slides about the different Windows and .NET Framework versions on different hardware platforms. This is the link to it:
http://www.devgroup-stuttgart.de/Download/2007-11-28/Windows%20Embedded_Co.pdf

Also see: http://blogs.msdn.com/frankpr/

Meeting of October 23rd 2008

2008-10-24T11:47:00.012+02:00

Attendees: Tim Bertholet, Maurice van den Heuvel, Hans Odenthal, Dorieke Schipper, Grayson Penzo and Erik Vermeulen

New project members!

Last year, we started our project with 10 members. Since then, Jeroen, Kees-Jan, Erwin, Peter and Maurice Beelen have left the project due to several reasons, mostly lack of time.
Today, Dorieke and Grayson were present to see what our project is all about and they may be joining us. First we introduced our project by doing a quick walk through through some presentations and this blog.
After that we proceeded with our meeting as if it was a regular one.

What has been done last month?

Erik created a new nk.bin image that includes the Via VT6655 Mini-PCI Wi-Fi driver. The running image also supports a persistent file system and registry (like Tim's image) so files and registry settings survive a reboot. This is also true for the WLAN passwords. From now on, entering your WPA2 key once will do.
On the eBox’ desktop I’ve also put a new link “Listen for Visual Studio” that starts both the conmanclient.exe and cmaccept.exe in order to support remote debugging from Visual Studio. By the way, I replaced them with the ones needed for Visual Studio 2008.
Furthermore I changed the eventing demo so it works with an actual Roomba. However, during my demo the demo effect kicked in: an exhausted battery screwed up my demo :(. Better luck next time.

Maurice integrated his TCP/IP implementation into the Siimon solution. He noticed that some methods are missing on the interfaces. These will be added and implemented by Tim and Erik soon. They will meet regularly the following weeks to get this done. Our goal is to have the bottom layers implemented asap so we can start with the more challenging parts: adding some form of ‘intelligence’. Basically this bottom layer implementation is similar to the RoombaSCI library; however it will have high level events added to it (OnBumperPressed, VoltageChanged etc.).

While discussing the project we concluded that for the intelligent part, we may need more sensors. Currently there is no good way to determine the robot’s position. The following weeks we will all have a look at auxiliary sensors.

Our next meeting will be on Thursday, December the 4th 2008, starting at 17.45. See you then!

Siibot Meeting Minutes, september 23rd 2008

2008-09-30T22:20:00.009+02:00

Present: TiBe, MaHe, MaBe, KrSm, ErVe
Absent: HaOd

This meeting we did a quick round to discuss the results of everyone's effort of the last period.

ErVe: Erik tried to connect the remoting server to a real Roomba instead of a simulation. However, there were problems with several USB-to-RS232 converters under Vista. We even got blue screens (that was a long time ago ;)). For the next meeting, Erik will use a PC with a native RS232 port or the eBox to get the demo working.

KrSm: Kristof managed to integrate Siibot's eBox into the M2W platform. Running M2W on Windows CE proved to be a real challenge. He gave an interesting demonstration with several Remote Desktop solutions. Before the demo he noticed that there aren't that many remote desktop servers available for Windows CE. PocketVNC might be a nice option, we found out during the meeting. Additionaly, Since M2W is aware of the IP address of the eBox after it registers, all kinds of interesting server applications could be run on the eBox. E.g. a webcam streaming server. Kristof will take a closer look at the options the next month.

MaHe: Maurice has built an abstraction layer on top of his TCP/IP protocol layer. This layer should enable us to swap AsGoodAsItGets and the alternative TCP/IP implementation without any hassle. As a goal for the next meeting, Maurice will integrate the abstraction layer in the Visual Studio 2008 solution.

TiBe: Tim took over the Windows CE platform builder issues from ErJo. Tim managed to build a new CE image (nk.bin) that is able to persist any changes done to the file system and registry. In other words, these changes will survive a reboot now. This wasn't the case before. This is an important step and makes the eBox a much nicer platform for development and deployment. If there are missing components in the current image (e.g. the Wifi driver is currently not yet included), don't hesitate to ask Tim to include them.

MaBe: Last meeting, we discussed the architecture. Both MaBe, TiBe and ErVe have been involved in the architecture before, however we really needed MaBe to be present in order to answer some of the questions that the others came up with. We got trapped in circular discussions during the previous meeting.
This time, MaBe was present and the architecture has been presented clearly to everyone. MaBe, ErVe and TiBe agreed to continue working on this part of the project. Since a lot of interface functions are already defined in both the presentation and our Visual Studio solution, we can start implementing the interfaces.

The next meeting will be on thursday, october 23rd 2008.

Volgende bijeenkomst is op dinsdag 8 juli 2008

2008-06-25T10:54:00.003+02:00

De agenda:

17.30 Eten
18.15 Siibot (zie hieronder)
20.00 Einde

Ik wil een rondgang maken om elkaar bij te praten, we zijn immers een tijd niet bij elkaar geweest:

M2W op de eBox (Kristof/Tim)
TCP/IP sockets (MauriceH)
Webcam/VLC streaming (Helaas heeft Jeroen Torfs het Siibot team verlaten)
Persistence op de eBox (Erwin)
Wifi remoting (Erik)
Architectuur (Tim/MauriceB/Erik)

Ik wil jullie vragen om dit kort voor te bereiden zodat je kan vertellen of kan laten zien waar je mee bezig bent geweest.

Tot de 8e!

Erik

Remoting with eventing is working!

2008-05-28T16:20:00.014+02:00

It has been quite a while since we set ourselves the goal to realize .NET remoting with eventing. For several reasons, I couldn't put enough effort in it, but now I have a working prototype. Finally!

What is it?

The solution consists of two executables and a shared library containing the interface definitions.
For each there is a separate project within the solution.

Server.exe

A .NET Compact Framework WinForms application representing the server side that will be running on the eBox eventually.
For now, a picture of an iRobot Create is displayed with which you can interact.

Client.exe

A .NET Full Framework WinForms application representing the control application (client) running on a PC.
There is a checkbox that can be used to switch Roomba's power LED. Three other checkboxes are checked when Roomba's bumpers are pressed.

Interface.dll

Containing the IServer and IClient interface and some enums. Both client and server communicate with each other via these interfaces through (As Good As It Gets) remoting.

A short demo

It's important to start the server first.

When the server is running we can start the client. The server's ip address should be set in the client's config file. Directly after starting the client, it will try to connect to the server. After this connection is established, the server will setup a new connection channel to the client to transport callbacks. Via this channel the client is informed that we're ready to go. As a result the power checkbox is enabled and ready for user interaction.

Clicking this checkbox will change the power led's state on the roomba in the server window.

You can see the callbacks work by clicking (and holding) Roomba's virtual bumbers. This can be done in 5 different places: front, left, right, front left and front right.

These 'bumps' are reflected in the client via (combinations of) checkboxes.

For the complete solution, update from the Siibot archive and check out %SIIBOT%\Development\Trunk\Sw\PoC\
CallbackRemoting\CallbackRemoting.sln
Please check the Readme.txt first if you want to run the solution. If you still have questions, you can always ask me.

The Robotics Primer Workbook

2008-04-17T13:36:00.005+02:00

Thanks to Wouter Moors from the Sioux LKG (Linux Knowledge Group).

Architecture team starts working Agile

2008-03-19T22:47:00.004+01:00

The Architecture team (Tim, Erik, Hans and me) are going to use Scrum to guide our development. Today we've chosen to use Xplanner as it already used within the Sioux Development Center and it can be accessed remotely through the web pages. Possibly other sub teams can use it too.

We will have sprints of 2 weeks. As we all work in the Development Center most meetings are planned in extended lunch breaks. We still need to define what daily means for us in "daily scrum meeting". But well, just give it a try.

We have looked at Virtual SCRUM Board by Microguru Corporation. what we found is that it lacked remote usability. But it had this nice Scrum board.

What we would like is the best of both worlds with an actual virtual scrum board, using some technologies to collaborate remotely. Not with the focus on project planning but on collaboration, standing at the board exchanging information and move notes around.

At the Praatje-Pot-Inipi (internal training at Sioux) by the author of "Dromen, Durven, Doen" Ben Tiggelaar, I got in conversation with Maurice van den Heuvel and Erik Vermeulen about creating this Scrum board where we can actually move, add and remove "paper" notes while working on geographically separate locations. Technologies like Skype can then be used to speak with each other.

Perhaps some development which the .Net Expertise Group can start.

Where's My Roomba? WiFi Signal Measuring

2008-03-17T18:10:00.000+01:00

Electrical and Computer Engineering students at the Jacobs School of Engineering (part of UCSD, the University of California in San Diego) can join a Sponsored Student Design Project (ECE 191). In one of last winter season's projects, students were challenged to develop a system that can determine a Roomba's indoors position very acurately. They seem to have used both tracking data from the Roomba itself as well as Wifi signal strength from a couple of Wifi routers. We're not this far yet, but to me it sounds very cool! They put this clip on YouTube:

SiiBot Agenda

2008-03-06T16:46:00.001+01:00

Just to share appointments within the team and subteams I've created an agenda in Google. Mail me your Google account and I'll give you access to the shared agenda.

We're using the blog to show our progress to the world. At this moment I've not released the agenda to the world. Let me know what you think about that.

.Net remoting and eventing

2008-03-06T07:49:00.001+01:00

I found this article on .Net remoting and implementing an eventing.

Although Utkarsh Shah, who is the author of the article, doesn't recommended using it over the network, it's interesting enough to test it on the ebox/CF and PC/FF and see how far we get. And learn rom the results.

Erik Vermeulen, who has done the first implementation using the AGAIG remoting, will perform the implementation and test. I'm looking forward to see the results.

.Net Remoting for the Compact Framework

2008-02-28T18:16:00.012+01:00

As you may have read in the summary of the last meeting, Peter Cosemans came up with the idea to use .NET remoting instead of a homebrewed communications protocol.
Maurice Beelen and I investigated this and we found out that, unfortunately, .NET remoting is not supported in the .NET Compact Framework.
Luckily, we ran into the following company: As Good As It Gets LLC. They created a remoting and serialization framework for Windows CE that is compatible with .NET remoting and they claim it's even faster.
It's not free (A license for one developer costs $199) but it's great! Our Siibot can be controlled remotely now, virtually in no time! See it driving around:

This is how I did it:

First of all I downloaded the .NET CF.Remoting.Client, CF.Remoting.Server, CF.Serialization - Installer and the 35 day trial license keys for both CF.Serialization and CF.Remoting from this page
Note that both license keys must be copied to the \Program Files\SiibotApp directory on the eBox later on.

The server side

I created a solution containing a CE 5.0 C# Device Application and a CE 5.0 C# Class Library. The class library contains an interface named IRoomba and a Roomba class implementing it. To make remoting work, the Roomba class has to inherit from System.MarshalByRefObject.

The Roomba class contains some code to initialize serial port COM1 and a little serial IO code to send the actual commands. This was borrowed from the RoombaSCI library for the time being.

Next it was time to initialize remoting in the form class. First of all I referenced the two AsGoodAsItGets assemblies and the class library containing the IRoomba interface. Next I added the appropriate using clauses.

The class has to be registered so it can be instantiated and invoked via remoting over TCP/IP.

Note that we chose WellKnownObjectMode.Singleton mode instead of WellKnownObjectMode.SingleCall since the latter reinstantiates the object with every method call.
For testing purposes remoting was initialized for TCP port 1500. According to IANA List of well known port numbers this port is reserved for the VLSI License Manager, but in our environment this is currently not a major issue. To be able to proceed with the client side, the server side project must be compiled first.

The client side

The client is a simple C# (.NET Full Framework) Windows application containing a couple of buttons to control the Siibot.
Make a reference to the class library assembly from the server project containing the IRoomba interface and the implementation.
The nice thing is that we can use standard .NET remoting now to instantiate the remote object and to invoke methods on it:

Note that we used a fixed IP here. I was able to do that because I configured my wireless router to assign this ip address to the eBox only.
Now that we have a referenced interface we can call methods on it. Behind each button on the form I call the appropriate method.

My conclusion: "As Good As It Gets Remoting" is great! We should definately purchase a license.

Deploying a C# project on the eBox

2008-02-28T11:40:00.003+01:00

In order to deploy a solution to the eBox I followed these steps:

I booted the eBox from the standard option in the boot menu: Boot CE/PC (local nk.bin with /L:1024x768x32)
Next I made a wireless connection from the eBox to my home wireless router by clicking its SSID from the list and (in my case) entering its AES/WPA2-PSK key. My router is configured as DHCP server for known MAC addresses so I had to add the eBox's MAC address to the allow list of my router.
In case you have a long Wi-Fi security key you can put it on a USB memory stick. It will appear under "\USB Storage" in the eBox's filesystem.
After the connection has been made, use ipconfig to check if a proper IP address was assigned.

Next, follow the steps mentioned in Part 6 of the eBox-2300 Windows Embedded CE 6.0 Jump Start Guide

Note: To get Visual Studio 2005 (Express) working on Vista, both VS2005 (Express) SP1 and Visual Studio 2005 Service Pack 1 Update for Windows Vista must be installed

I noticed that after installing the eBox SDK the "eBox2300_WinCE600_SDK x86 Device" didn't show up in the list of target devices in Visual Studio. Renaming my C:\Users\\AppData\Local\Microsoft\CoreCon\1.0 directory and restarting Visual Studio 2005 fixed the problem. See also: Google topics

Siibot meeting February 21st 2008

2008-02-27T13:23:00.009+01:00

In English this time :)

Next meeting: Thursday, April 17th 2008, 17:30: Pizza. 18:00: Start

Simulation

Hans and Erik had a look at a way to run our Siibot code against the Microsoft Robotics simulator. They concluded that it will take too much effort to realize this.
Since we have 2 iRobot Create platforms and Erik has a real Roomba vacuum cleaner, we should manage without simulator.

C# Roomba SCI Library

Peter has been working on a Roomba SCI library that works for both the Compact and Micro Framework. This library is based on the existing RoombaSCI framework from SourceForge.
He's not finished yet and will proceed with the development.

Deployment

During our meeting we tried to connect to the eBox through a wireless connection. We didn't succeed yet.
For the next time, Hans and Erik will have a look at connectivity and deployment.

Subversion

The subversion archive is in place and it is actually used. However, the question was raised: what goes where?
As in normal projects we have a Development\Trunk\Sw directory that contains an App, Lib and Import directory.
The Import directory will contain any binary that our application depends on, like assemblies for instance.
We will support both Visual Studio 2005 and 2008: the Sw directory currently contains 2005 solutions for both Compact and Micro Framework. These two solutions will be added for 2008 as well.

A note from Maurice Beelen: Commit monitor is a handy tool that will notify you when there are changes in the archive.

eBox Battery Pack

Tim has fabricated the battery pack for the eBox! See the following blog items:

eBox 2300 battery and eBox running on battery

TCP/IP Client and Server

Maurice van den Heuvel continued working on the TCP/IP client and server. Currently data is sent one way only. Maurice will work on two way communication for the next time.

Remoting

Peter suggested using .Net remoting. This offers direct functionality without all the TCP/IP and protocol plumbing. Maurice Beelen will start a parallel search for a Remoting Solution. He will use the Visual Studio CE simulator for this.

Webcam

Jeroen has shown his experiences with a webcam he purchased. An API/SDK is available for it but it depends heavily on DirectShow. He will investigate if this is usable on the Compact Framework. Maybe C++ code is needed. Kristof Smits and Jeroen will look into this. Another option is using the VLC media player for streaming. Jeroen will investigate this further for the next time.

Porting Machine2World to the eBox

Kristof has been working on the M2W port for the eBox. The ACE and CURL library must be ported for this, but since Win CE lacks certain system calls that are available in non-CE Windows platforms there are still issues to be solved. Tim will join Kristof.

Architecture:

Maurice Beelen suggested to have a look at the overall architecture of out system. Maurice Beelen, Erik and Hans will take this up the following weeks.

Todos:

KrSm:

M2W port (With TiBe)
Look at VLC streaming/C++? (with JeTo)

MaBe:

Remoting op WinCE (emulator)
Discuss the overall architecture (With HaOd & ErVe)

PeCo: C# Roomba SCI Lib 4 CF & MF

JeTo:

Webcam
Look at VLC streaming/C++? (with KrSm)

MaHe: TCP/IP two way communications

TiBe: M2W port (With KrSm)

ErVe:

Deployment of an application to the eBox + remote debugging
Discuss the overall architecture (With HaOd & MaBe)

HaOd:

Deployment (With ErVe)
Discuss the overall architecture (With MaBe & ErVe)

Weblog, de of het?

2008-02-27T12:39:00.003+01:00

Is het nou dé of hét weblog? We zijn eruit! Het mag allebei van de Taaladviesdienst! :)

CommitMonitor - SVN meets RSS ?

2008-02-21T21:56:00.001+01:00

I found a nice tool by Stefan Küng (also responsible for TortoiseSVN builds). It's called CommitMonitor and tells you when changes to an Subversion repository occured. In stead of scanning the log your self you just provide the tool with the necessary URLs (yes local network repositories are not yet supported [bummer]) and it does it for you once every while. The period is adjustable.

When changes occur you get a nice message above your task bar and you can see in the monitor what has happened. You get per repository per commit the author, the comment and the modified paths.

The diff is unfortunately a unified diff over the complete set.

Just have a look at it. It gives me a good idea of what is happening in my codeSpace.

eBox running on battery

2008-02-07T17:13:00.000+01:00

Today we saw the eBox running on battery, so we can really start driving around now!

eBox 2300 battery

2008-01-21T13:06:00.000+01:00

As stated before, the iRobot battery is not powerful enough to power the eBox while the iRobot is operating as well. Even though our robot has the "Advanced Power Battery System" (APS), which is already more powerful than the default battery.

So it seems wise to power the eBox using a separate battery. Inspired by http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/robotics/bb403184.aspx, I ordered the following parts:

A 9.6V RC battery: http://www.conrad.nl/goto/?product=227906.
A voltage regulator to regulate the battery down to the 5V input voltage of the eBox: http://www.roboticsconnection.com/pc-38-9-5v-switching-voltage-regulator.aspx.

This battery will power the eBox for 1.5 (one-and-a-half) hours when it is fully charged (the eBox uses 15W according to http://www.icoptech.com/ebox-pc/files/1EBX23W_s.pdf).

The next issue is how to charge the battery. I see the following 2 options:

Directly from the iRobot when it does not need its power for its own operation.
This option would require more extensive investigation and I wonder if this is useful, considering the purpose of this project. Just a wild guess: this even might turn out to be impossible. Of course, this also decreases the overall operation duration between charges (so the iRobot has to visit its Base Station more often).
From an external adapter that will be connected when the iRobot is charging itself.
This approach is only challenging from a mechanical point of view: How can the battery connect itself to a separate charger when the iRobot arrives at its Base Station?

Even the second, simpler, approach will require more non-software-related effort. The mechanical/physical impact might be less if the Base Station could charge both batteries at the same time. I cannot prove this with calculations yet, but I doubt that the 30W of the Base Station is enough to do that.

I took the liberty to provide a workaround by ordering a quick-charger (http://www.conrad.nl/goto/?product=224946). This enables us to demonstrate a running iRobot for 1.5 hours by charging it 'manually', which might be a sufficient solution for the time being.

Any comments or questions would be greatly appreciated!

Bijeenkomst 11 december

2007-12-18T09:39:00.000+01:00

11 december was de laatste bijeenkomst van het Siibot team.
De volgende collega's waren erbij:

Tim Bertholet (TiBe)
Erwin de Jong (ErJo)
Maurice van den Heuvel (MaHe)
Hans Odenthal (HaOd)
Kristof Smits (KrSm)
Erik Vermeulen (ErVe)
Jeroen Torfs (JeTo)

Hier volgt een overzicht van de actiepunten van de meeting van 25 oktober. Ook de nieuwe acties voor iedereen worden genoemd.

iRobot Simulatie (HaOd + ErVe)

Aangezien we maar één robot hebben (en eventueel die van Peter) zal het zeker gaan voorkomen dat er iemand code aan het ontwikkelen is die hij niet ter plekke kan testen op de iRobot zelf. We hebben gekozen voor het C# RoombaSCI Framework (SourceForge) dat we dus zouden moeten stubben. Nu heeft Microsoft Robotics Studio de mogelijkheid om een iRobot rond te laten rijden in een 3D virtuele wereld. Dit zouden we graag gebruiken als test environment voor onze Siibot, echter moet hier wel het een en ander voor uitgezocht worden. Robotics Studio werkt bijvoorbeeld met manifests (xml). We zullen dus een manier moeten vinden om de RoombaSCI interface aan te bieden bovenop Robotics Studio. Hans en Erik hebben hier tijd aan besteed, maar er is nog geen doorbraak. Dit punt blijft staan voor de volgende bijeenkomst.

Wifi op de eBox 2300 met Windows CE 6.0 (ErJo)

Erwin heeft Wifi aan de praat! Kort samengevat kwam het er op neer dat we geen drivers hadden voor de Wifi module. Erwin is hier achteraan gegaan en heeft de juiste driver kunnen bemachtigen. Hij heeft een image gebouwd voor de eBox met daarin Wifi support. Je kunt nu inderdaad de SSID's zien die 'in de lucht' zitten. Erwin gaat voor de volgende keer kijken hoe je C# code kunt deployen op de eBox.

C# code bouwen met Visual Studio (KrSm)

In het vorige blog item bespreekt Kristof uitgebreid hoe je C# code kunt bouwen voor het .Net Compact Framework 2.0. Het deployen gebeurt vooralsnog op een emulator.
Kristof is nog altijd enthousiast over het idee om Machine2World te laten draaien op de eBox. Als dit lukt dan kunnen we profiteren van een hele waslijst aan handige features die door M2W worden geboden. De machinekant van M2W is momenteel C++. Kristof gaat uitzoeken of hij dit kan compileren voor de eBox.

TCP/IP client/server (MaHe)

Maurice is in C# een TCP/IP client en een server aan het bouwen. Deze kunnen gebruikt worden om communicatie tussen een normale PC en de eBox te laten plaatsvinden. Dit opent de weg naar allerlei interessante toepassingen waarbij het zware werk door de PC gedaan kan worden. Daarnaast wordt het mogelijk om op afstand (via Wifi) informatie heen en weer te zenden tussen PC en eBox (denk aan SCI commando's, statussen en beeld)

Laadsysteem eBox 2300 accu (TiBe)

De iRobot is in staat om zelf zijn weg te vinden naar zijn laadstation. Helaas heeft de batterij in de iRobot onvoldoende capaciteit om zowel de robot als de eBox te voeden. Tim is aan het uitzoeken of we zowel de batterij van de robot als een extra 'battery pack' kunnen opladen met het basisstation. Vooralsnog lijkt het erop dat het basisstation te weinig vermogen heeft hiervoor. To be continued.

Verdere nieuwe acties:

Jeroen (JeTo) gaat zich verdiepen in webcams in combinatie met Windows CE en het .Net Compact Framework.

Acties van de eerste bijeenkomst (4 oktober):

Roomba C# Framework (PeCo)

Peter heeft voor zijn Siibot.MF project al eerder gebruik gemaakt van C# RoombaSCI Framework. In verband met code sharing en opgebouwde kennis gaan we ditzelfde framework ook gebruiken voor dit project.

Robotics Studio in combinatie met Roomba (PeCo)

Dit punt is (min of meer) overgenomen door HaOd en ErVe

Mantis opzetten (MaBe)

Done (zie mailtje 18-10)

Plaatsbepaling (MaHe + MaBe)

Dit punt staat nog open.

De volgende bijeenkomst zal plaatsvinden op 14 februari 2008.

Building and Debugging code for the Siibot

2007-12-09T11:52:00.001+01:00

SDK
To build code on the ebox 2300, you have to download and install the ebox 2300 SDK :
go to following website and download/install "eBox2300_WinCE600_SDK.msi"
Create a C# project
Startup Visual Studio, and create a new project.
Select a Visual C# - Smart Device - Windows CE 5.0 device
Choose your project type:
- Console Application : command line application
- Device Application : GUI application
- Class library : library
Build
To build code for the ebox2300, make sure the toolbar "device" is visible, by selecting
View > Toolbars > Device
In this toolbar, you can select the target device for which you want to build code. Select the ebox2300 device.

Click here for a more detailed example.
Debug / simulate
Probably more interesting is how to debug / simulate your Siibot application. This is quite 'tricky' because the ebox2300 does not provide an emulator environment.

In the device toolbar, select "Pocket PC 2003 SE Emulator".
Now you can debug your application, indeed on a Pocket PC.

In the emulator, browse wit the 'File Explorer' to 'Program Files'. Here you can find, startup and debug your application.
Deploy on the ebox2300
To be defined. Erwin will investigate this.
More information
eBox-2300 Windows Embedded CE 6.0 Jump Start Guide

Laser afstands scanner

2007-10-29T23:23:00.001+01:00

Tijdens de laatste Siibot meeting hadden we het over een laser sensor als hulpmiddel tijdens het lokaliseren. Tijdens het zoeken naar informatie over lokalisering kwam deze pagina tegen waar onderstaande sensor wordt gebruikt.

De produktpagina van de fabrikant. Of zoek op http://www.sick.de naar LMS-200. Prijsinformatie heb ik nog niet gevonden.

Subversion Archief

2007-10-18T10:57:00.001+02:00

Voor het beheer van software en documentatie is binnen het Development Centre van Sioux een Subversion (SVN) archief aangemaakt. Het team heeft via een apart traject de toegangsinformatie ontvangen.

Meer informatie over Subversion kun je vinden via de volgende links:

Subversion	Commandline omgeving
TortoiseSVN	Windows explorer plugin
AnkhSVN	gratis Visual Studio plugin
VisualSVN	betaalde Visual Studio plugin

Windows Live Writer

2007-10-18T09:33:00.001+02:00

Als je iets gemakkelijker een blog entry wilt aanmaken kan je gebruik maken van een gratis Microsoft tool: Windows Live Writer. Het is een desktop applicatie met tal van mogelijkheden.

Probeer het maar, zeker aan te raden.

Hier vind je meer informatie en download.

http://windowslivewriter.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!D85741BB5E0BE8AA!174.entry?

Ps. dit bericht, samen met de image is aangemaakt met Windows Live Writer

Welkom bij het Siibot weblog

2007-10-17T18:02:00.001+02:00

Wij zijn een groep Sioux medewerkers die meewerken aan het Siibot (Sioux iRobot) project. Dit blog is bedoeld als communicatiemiddel voor de Siibotters.

In dit blog plaatsen we bijvoorbeeld korte stukjes informatie, nieuwtjes en aankondigingen.