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Another Brookstone Rover Project

I just got another brookstone rover at a very good price of $60 including shipping and should get it in 2 says or so,going to control both rovers with only one ARC plus a some other hacks

Will be posting my design up in less then a week.


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#46  
sorry everyone about the problems ME and RICH is doing

NEXT post i will not answer RICH at all,i just post my idea and post a circuit or video ON how it works

AND if it doesnt work not a problem too,i will say it doesnt work.But atleast i will test it.

SO far this was a good post by me and i got part of it working,next is control both of them,witch i think it may work with a very good help from my network guy that did work for company who makes and builds wireless and wifi routers and cards,he is a software engineer and a hacker,only will NOT hack anyones computer unless its OK with them.

SO thats where i get all my info from,not from a person i dont know,NOW RICH MAYBE RIGHT
but he doesnt know anything about my friend

RICH i will never ever email you and please do not email me,in your photo you look about under 30
my network guy is 47 to 50,and know way more then you do,you can still say you know more but you dont know him and you thing your never work for company who makes software and hardware for networking

Second point i dont know about you,but i do know he is in the networking field for 20 years maybe more ,I help me for that long may be little less

anyone else can ,your will go to spam folder,

Can post again on the topic i cant stop you.but i can not answer you a ny more

So wont be any more fighting from you

ONLY for others i will post the video,if cant or can get it to work. i know i will find a answer to make it work

and on the networks correcty me only one post WINDOWS 7
Canada
#47  
Man, you need to learn to stop arguing with people when their not arguing with you, just focus on the build. Looking forward to seeing an on topic post for this build soon.
#48  
IT SEEMS LIKE HE HIS,why RICH needs to comment on very post i do not know
it does take two to argue,he says i am wrong

BUT BEST is i will never ever answer him again,he can post all he wants and make and comments he wants.on any topic,i just say my design MAY or MAYNOT work after i test it.

And finish this project and POST A VIDEO

Very simple way not to argue any more WITH HIM he can post info
his very bad temper needs to stop ,that i do not like,if he doesnt agree with fine ,great

Never see me get upset ever in any of my posts,NOT ONE EVER
Canada
#49  
You don't need to defend your self, I'm not attacking you. I don't believe Rich was either, but I'm no mind reader. So what's the next step?
#50  
I know you are not attacking me ERREUL ,you seem a very nice guy ,with great advice

LAST post is for RICH ,i know if can read them
and he is not going to answer them witch is geatt,i did the same,not just on this post ,but any other post by him or me.


NEXT step i need to get my wifi dongle in ,and try the idea my friend will give me.


he said if it doesnt work,in a month he needs to come to miami on business and oly about a hour ride from my house it will try to see why it wont work or another idea

YOU should see the network system he set up work me ,using a slow computer and 5 NIC board and a special software runnung like a LINUX server,i had now virus ever

I know this has notthing to do with EZB ,but how he is a expert at networking,if he wanted to he can hack your computer,but he would never do it.
#51  
So, is it possible to control two rovers with one PC? *sleep*
#52  
Not shore yet DAVE until i get my second wireless dongle in,my network guy says it might work
next month will see him,but still he will try to help me on a email on this.
Canada
#53  
I'm sorry Dave, I can't let you do that.
#55  
DAVE i think ERREUL trying to be funny,one thing a like about him.

You are more serious type witch is great
#56  
I i found out how to save my screen in bmp format from help from RICH

So now i can try a few ideas i have to control both ROVERS with one computer,it may need 2 computers hook up in a network type idea using the server command in ARC and have on computer read and control both.

Maybe RICH is right ,kinda hard to tell unless you have 2 rovers and try it your self.all it needs is a better idea then another person

JUST like in anything ,one person thats really good at it,might say it wonk work ,biut another person might have a bteer idea that might work.

most of the idea with come from my network and software expert

BUT IF DOESNT WORK ,its still ok ,atleast i tried until a better person makes it work

will post my computer image if it does

Waiting on a peice from CHINA
United Kingdom
#57  
I feel like poking the bear... Did you achieve the impossimpible?

It's all gone a little quiet and no news on this project. I'm actually very interested in knowing if a work around to the IP conflict problem and the single Movement Panel issues were found. Have you managed to do it?
#58  
RICH havent had the time with my beacon project,my wifi design and then friday leaving on my 3 week work trip

BUT with me i dont give up,and will try my solution,it may not work,but without trying i never will know

Hopping it can be done :) :)
#59  
Hello Everyone,

This is my first post on EZRobot. I believe I have some relevant information to contribute to this thread.

First, I will say it is possible to control multiple robots, but I don't think robotmaker is on the right path, At least from a quick read. But, I applaud his determination. If you do get it to work using your method, I will be the first to drool.

I say it is possible because I am working on the same project. In fact this is a year old project that I inherited as a class project from a friend who interned at a space agency, which will remain unnamed. He was able to control four robots simultaneously with one pc. Thats right, ONE PC. of course, he had to have a separate WIFI dongle for each robot.

Rich is correct that their would be a IP conflict, but only if that specific IP is called.

The key was to bind each wifi card. What this means is to create an Object and bind that object to a specific WIFI card. My friend accomplished this by first creating an API for the Rover using Mathworks MATLAB. Each Rover has a MATLAB Object created for it. Then that object is binded to the wifi card using Java code.

Now we are trying to figure out how to do this with one wifi card. We want to create a swarm platform, and having to purchase a separate wifi dongle for each Rover is impractical. But we might have no choice.

We are currently migrating our code to ROS using Python and C++.

Don't know if this same method could be applied to EZROBOT as I am unfamiliar with the software.

I have been working in the lab all day, time to hit the bars.

Good Luck guys!

-Berkeley
United Kingdom
#60  
Thanks for the input @berkeley110.

However, there are a lot of problems with this entire idea. Even after the networking issues are solved it's still riddled with problem that have been flagged up so I wont repeat myself.

As far as I know, a wireless NIC can only connect to one network at any one time. It would be impossible to connect more than one rover to one WiFi card. It may be possible if you could somehow reverse how it works and have the rovers connect to the PC rather than the PC connect to the rover.

Why is one NIC per rover impractical? Wifi NICs are a dime a dozen, and a powered USB hub solves any problems of low USB port counts. However, all of that is pointless if the IP of the Rovers is unable to be changed, which without custom firmware that either doesn't exist or is very well hidden isn't possible.

But even after all of that, even if you achieve connection to multiple rovers with one PC, there is still the problem of ARC being hardcoded to connect to 192.168.1.100:80 for the Rover Movement Panel and the problem of only being able to use one Movement Panel per instance of ARC.

Please keep us updated on your progress though, it sounds like you are on the right tracks (although I remain to believe even those tracks lead to a dead end).

Rich
Canada
#61  
Hey Rich, he says it works. It's currently 4:30 and I'm dead tired, did you just tell him that he was wrong? I don't believe that he would just lie about it working. Unless we're talking about how it's going to work on the EZ-B, then I'll just go to sleep.
United Kingdom
#62  
Erreul, you misunderstand. Please re-read.

If it isn't working with ARC or the EZ-SDK then it isn't working. So yes, it is exactly right that we are (at least I am) talking about how it's going to work on in ARC. Have some sleep:)
#63  
Thats same idea the BERKELEY110 is doing is same idea i have ,using 2 WIFI'S
But also trying another idea too.

Right now can test my theory till i get back from my work trip in china,but will be my first project once i get back
Already have my other USB WIFI dongle in
#64  
Hello Rich

Yes, after further research and a discussion with a professor of mine (A Google Engineer, too! so cool!) The only way to accomplish my goal with one NIC would be to create my own protocol on top of UDP, which would ignore IP add. in favor of using the Mac Address. He told me this would be a huge time consuming project and that it would be more practical to go the route of hacking the robot instead. But, for the focus of my project and better focus my time, I should proceed with multiple NIC.

The reason multiple NIC are impractical has to do with scale. Sure, if I have two or three robots, then there is no big deal with a couple of dongles. But my project needs to be able to scale to huge teams of robots who operate as individuals. We are talking about 10, 20, maybe even fifty robots at a time. If I can't easily scale the project in the future, then it would not work great for future research. But, nonetheless I will carry on with my puny three...

I hope that clears up some questions. I will ask my friend if he has any video of the four robots working together. If not, I will ask him if we can run the old setup for some video. Wish I could release the old API he created so you guys could play with it, but I don't think he really has the rights to it.

I plan to make any code I create on my own time available to the pubic. Most likely using GPL or something similar.

Do any of you guys have experience creating and maintaining a blog? Any recommendations? I would like to start keeping an online diary of projects to help others. Thanks for any advice.

-Berkeley

P.S. Apparently there some windows software to create a virtual NIC to connect to two signals using one actual NIC in order to increase download speeds. It came up in a google search. But my project goes in a different direction and I will not bother trying to get that to work.
United Kingdom
#65  
Wordpress is good blogging software, very easy to use. It's popularity speaks for itself.
Google have their own blogging service too, I think it's blogspot but not sure, I don't use it anymore since I have my own wordpress site running (not for blogging in the normal sense but for news updates etc for my business website).

Anyway, give wordpress a whirl, it's free, you can host it or they can host it for you. If you run in to problems drop me an email rich@richpyke.net and I'll see what I can do to help.