TODO: badges

thymio-captain

Thymio Captain is a complete system offering an easy drag-and-drop web interface (optimized for tablets) to execute programs wirelessly on Thymio robots.

Context

TODO: authors

This system was developed for the "Portes Ouvertes" of the HEIA-Fr on March 2016, in order for the kids to quickly and effortlessly have a feel of how great programming a robot is. Tabletts were at the kids' disposal, as well as four Thymio.

We created a course made of black lines (the road) and obstacles that the robots should follow/avoid in order to grab a basket of candies and make their way back. Upon success, kids would win the candies.

Features

The thymio captain is a complete system consisting of the following parts:

• web frontend:

  • each session/window associated with a unique id from a qr-code

  • compatible with tablets

  • made of predefined and configurable blocks that can be drag-and-dropped and reordered to create a program

  • "undo/redo", "save to the cloud" and "upload" buttons

  • possibility to annotate a program

  • admin interface to manage the Thymios

  • API backend:

  • JSON Rest API

  • in charge of linking the web application with the robots

  • Thymio backend:

  • running on a Raspberry Pi mounted on the Thymio

  • able to receive an aseba program, compile it and execute it on the tymio

  • ping, start and stop commands available

Overview in action

Interface:

Round:

TODO

Technical overview

Frontend

The frontend is an AngularJS 1.5 web application. The angularjs code can be found under frontend/webapp/ajs. Note that the html page templates are under frontend/webapp/internal_pages.

Frameworks:

• Angular Materialize: a library providing angular templates and directives for the Materialize CSS framework
• DerlinModals: a custom-made library for creating modals with angular
• Decipher History: useful for in-page history. Used mainly for the under/redo buttons
• ng-sortable: after trying many plugins, this one was the most flexible and bug-free drag-and-drop library we found. Used for the drag-and-drop cards functionality.

API

Jacques: cards, security, db

Thymio

Damien: folders in repo, install and limitations

Status and futur works

(reference on issues)