Wheel-E Control Panel
In December of 2020, CIRC started building a control panel for Wheel-E, the club Robomagellan robot. Born out of a brainstorming session from Summer 2020, the original rough concept was for a touchscreen/display with a few simple functions, such as a safe shutdown feature for powering off Wheel-E’s raspberry pi. We envisioned the display bolted into Wheel-E’s chassis and communicating with the pi over a serial link such as CAN or SPI.
It might be an understatement to say that the original project concept has evolved since those early days. During Winter ‘21, Matt put together an initial working concept using an old Arduino board he had laying around (Chipkit Max32), plus a new 3.2“ TFT LCD screen with resistive touchscreen from Adafruit. After showing off this initial prototype to club members, the brainstorming really took off. From the original idea of an on-board touchscreen with a few simple functions, we landed on a handheld touchscreen device communicating wirelessly with Wheele over a LoRa datalink. Now we wanted to be able to drive Wheel-E around by virtual joystick via the wireless touchscreen while mapping out GPS routes, then flip over to autonomous mode and let Wheel-E roam.
In May of ’21, we had a nice proof of concept demonstration at a club build session. With the display connected to a laptop via USB, we were able to forward command velocity data from the touchscreen into Wheel-E’s ROS control infrastructure, and drive the ‘bot around Mike’s driveway.
During Summer and Fall of ‘21, the project solidified into a more stable programmable display platform. The old Chipkit Max32 Arduino was replaced with a more modern Adafruit Feather M0 (48MHz ARM CortexM0 CPU), which includes a 900MHz LoRa radio module on-board. Matt was able to spend some time getting a better software architecture in place, to be able to keep up with the flow of brainstorming ideas that inevitably come out of CIRC build sessions. And Tom put his 3D printer through its paces, coming up with several concepts for an ergonomic handheld device that would contain the display and associated electronics/battery.
Current status as of May ‘22, the touchscreen has a functional menu system that is relatively easy to add/extend with new ideas as they come up at build sessions. A GPS unit is installed and displays current position. Support needs to be added to save waypoints for Wheel-E to follow. The biggest outstanding feature at the moment is to demonstrate the LoRa wireless link. Based on some early prototyping, the LoRa functionality on the display is more or less functional. To complete the concept for a working demo, a LoRa module needs to be added on-board Wheel-E with some basic message encoding/decoding and forwarding over Wheel-E’s CAN datalink.
Follow along! We archive source code and track issues for the touchscreen here: https://github.com/CentralIllinoisRoboticsClub/wheele_gui
September 13, 2022 at 9:35 pm | Projects | No comment
July Meeting Postponed Till the 20th
The July club meeting is postponed till Wednesday, July 20th. It will start at 5:00 PM. You can attend the meeting in person at River City Labs (RCL) or online via Google Hangouts. If you wish to attend online and are not a regular attendee, email president@circpeoria.org for an invite. Click on the Meetings tab to get a map to RCL and to learn more about our meetings.
July 12, 2022 at 9:33 pm | Uncategorized | No comment
Meeting Update
We’ve been meeting online throughout the COVID-19 pandemic using Google Hangouts. We’ve held regular monthly meetings and build sessions. The monthly meetings are held on the second Wednesday of the month. The build sessions are generally held on the fourth Wednesday of the month. Both are open to anyone. Details on them can be found on our Meetings page.
December 8, 2021 at 7:48 pm | Uncategorized | No comment
Bot Brawl Cancelled for 2021
We will not be hosting a Bot Brawl in 2021. We had hoped that the global pandemic would have settled down enough by now, but there is still too much uncertainty. Hopefully by August 2022, conditions will allow for us to again have fun hosting one of the best and biggest RC Combat competitions for Ant and Beetle weights.
July 7, 2021 at 12:54 pm | Brawls & Boogaloos | No comment
Bot Brawl 2020 is Canceled
Sorry to announce, but we have canceled Bot Brawl 2020 due to the global COVID-19 pandemic. We hope to see you in 2021.
June 3, 2020 at 8:07 pm | Announcements, Brawls & Boogaloos | No comment
Bot Boogaloo 2020 is on Cancelled
Conditions never got right for a contest in 2020.
Below is what we hope to do in 2021.
It will be similar to our past events with only slight modifications. We hope to again have it at Illinois Central College in East Peoria, Illinois, in room 212/213 of the Academic Building. It has worked out well to host it there, so we’ll do it again.
Parking will be available in Lot V. If it is full, Lot C will work well. Note that College Drive is a one way road going counter clockwise around the campus.
The competition will start around 10:00 AM and finish in the early afternoon. People can arrive as early as 8:30 AM. Contestant check in is from 9:00 AM to 9:40 AM. The order of events will be weather dependent. We will have the indoor events when rain is most expected and the RoboMagellan will be held outdoors when rain is least expected. The final decision will be made Saturday morning between the organizers and contestants.
We will accept mail-in entries. If you are mailing in an entry, email me so we can anticipate your robot(s). Bruce at president@circpeoria.org
Registration will be opened once we make a final decision in mid-May. You will be able to register via BuildersDB. Walk ins are welcome Saturday morning during the check in time. Please email me if you plan on entering Saturday morning. It’s not mandatory, but it will help us plan and get better organized. Bruce at president@circpeoria.org
Events
An entry fee of $20 is charged for each robot preregistered, or $30 if not preregistered. Day of the competition walk ins are welcome. Art Bot entrants are not charged. There is no charge for people just watching. It’s only the robots that we charge.
Sumo: Autonomous sumo bots (example video):
Mini Sumo (500 g)
Mega Sumo (3 kg)
Line Course: Autonomous line following bots (example video):
Line Following
Line Maze
Cone Stalking: Autonomous indoor cone touching bots Cone Stalking rules
Art Bot: Something fun and free form that does not require a registration fee. Art Bot rules
RoboMagellan: We’ll use Seattle Robotics Society’s RoboMagellan rules
April 8, 2020 at 8:04 pm | Brawls & Boogaloos, Competitions | No comment
April Meeting To Be Held Online
The April meeting will be held online. We will be using Google Hangouts. All active members have been invited. If you would like to attend, contact Bruce Stott at president@circpeoria.org and he’ll invite you. We will try to follow the same format as a regular meeting: 1) Show and Tell, 2) Tech Talk: Mike will continue his talk on PID control, 3) Business, and 4) Build Session. It’ll be different and hopefully interesting to meet this way.
April 7, 2020 at 5:56 pm | Monthly Meeting Recaps | No comment
March Meeting Back At RCL
Our March meeting will be back at RCL, aka River City Labs. They are located at 7916 N.Hale Ave., Peoria, IL 61615. Use the white door on the north side of the building.
And yes, we’ll meet at 5:00 PM. The meeting will last until we decide that we have had enough. Attendees can leave anytime they desire. One does not need to be a member to attend.
Agenda:
1) Show and Tell – Share current projects.
2) Tech Talk – “PID Control” multi-part series with Mike.
3) Business – Plan club activities.
4) Build Session – Work on team or personal projects.
March 11, 2020 at 11:17 am | Monthly Meeting Recaps | No comment
February Meeting Rescheduled
Due to the weather, we rescheduled the February meeting to Wednesday, 2/19/2020. We’ll meet at Germantown Hills Library meeting room at 5:00 PM. The meeting room is to the left as one walks into the library. Agenda: 1) Show and Tell, 2) Tech Talk: Mike will talk about PID Control, and 3) Beloved Business Stuff. There will NOT be a build session due to lack of time and being in a library instead of a shop. We will need to be out by 6:45ish at the latest, though the library would like us out by 6:30. (They close the building at 7:00). Hope to see you there.
February 12, 2020 at 3:41 pm | Monthly Meeting Recaps, Uncategorized | No comment
December Meeting Canceled
Due to our schedules becoming more congested and conflicted than normal, we have decided to cancel the CIRC December meeting. The January meeting is on Wednesday, 1/8/2020, at 5:00 PM at River City Labs. See directions on the Meetings page.
December 16, 2019 at 8:59 am | Monthly Meeting Recaps, Uncategorized | No comment
