bobalston
1)Can anyone help me understand how the capabilities in the ARC scripting language compare with those available in robots which can be programmed with SNAP 4.0 (aka Build your own blocks). I have looked up the scripting capabilities of ARC and it seems very rudimentary, at least as compared to SNAP 4.0. Of course I may be missing something or even a lot.
So far I have opened the EZ builder script window. On the right I see the various commands in script HELP. T the upper left I see where I can type in the various commands to form my script.
I see that there are a LOT of script commands. These include
GOTO IF then
If then elseif
Repeat Repeat until Repeat while
compass turn Compass forward
various file read and file write commands
various built in functions
Clearly there is a lot of functionality in the scripting commands available. I am just trying to get an idea of the power and ease of use of this capability vs. SNAP 4.0
- Are there any plans to implement graphical control capabilities such as SNAP, miniblog, scratch or similar?
ControlCommand() is how a script can interact with other controls. For example, it would be used in speech recognition to enable camera color tracking.
Each procedure is a sepsrate Script Control, or to make it easier use the Script Manager - which allows more than one script. You can execute each proecedural script with ControlCommand() and use the Start or StartWait parameter
To be honest with you, EZ-Script is very simple once you get used to it and understand how easy it is to use.
There are a whole load of examples which come in ARC which cover pretty much every command available and there are more script examples in the forums which cover and detail more commands.
While it's mainly taylored towards IR sensors, GetADC, IF, ElseIF, Goto and Return (and probably has old syntax) I did write an introduction to scripting a while back which may be worth a read. Also if you check out some of my other scripts I've written and explained they may help you see how powerful yet simple EZ-Script is, they are all commented throughout explaining what each section does and why it is there.
Best advice is to download ARC and try it out. You don't need an EZ-B to try it, you can write simple scripts that Print() and Say() things depending on a bunch of variables which don't rely on the EZ-B such as $date, $time, $hour, $minute, $second, math functions and GetRandom(), you could even hook up a usb camera and use the camera control and script commands if you wanted to.