brainyant-rpi

Node JS library interfacing Raspberry Pi with BrainyAnt platform. Use this to build your own robot and code the funcionality you desire.

System Requirements

Hardware: Raspberry Pi 3 Raspicam Actuators and sensors.

Operating System: Raspian Stretch

Connect device to the internet:

Connect your Raspberry Pi to a monitor, a keyboard and a mouse. You will be able to use the graphical interface to connect to WiFi or Ethernet.

Install dependencies:

Node JS

curl -sL https://deb.nodesource.com/setup_9.x | sudo -E bash -
sudo apt-get install -y nodejs

Use Raspicam for broadcasting video

ffmpeg

sudo apt-get install ffmpeg

Enable raspicam

$ sudo raspi-config

Navigate to 'Interface Options'>'Camera' and enable camera. Reboot device.

Setup Your Robot

Open the terminal on the Rapberry Pi and create a new folder:

mkdir myRobot
cd myRobot

Browse to brainyant.com, create an account and add a new robot. Connect to your RPi, open a browser and login to your account in brainyant.com. Go to the newly added robot and press the "Download Auth File" button. This will save auth.json that contains your robot credentials. Save it to the forlder you just created: myRobot.

Follow the visual instructions:

Install brainyant-rpi package. This will take some time.

$ npm install brainyant-rpi

Build your code

You are ready to start adding functionality to your robot. You can subscribe to the commands taken from the web app which the users are sending and also add output data that will be visible on the user interface. Create a new js file, import brainyant-rpi and start adding functions like in the example.

nano myRobot.js

var brain = require("brainyant-rpi");
brain = new brain.Brain();
// Handle user command
// This function will get trigered each time
// the use in control touches a control key or button
brain.userCommand.subscribe(function(command){
  // command is a JSON Object with the structure:
  // command {
  //   fwd:   <forward-command>; // 0-100
  //   back:  <back-command>;    // 0-100
  //   left:  <left-command>;    // 0-100
  //   right: <right-command>;   // 0-100
  // }
  // Your code goes here
  // ...
}) 
// Register a sensor
brain.registerSensor('Distance', function() {
  //return data from your sensor
  var dummyValue=1;
  return dummyValue;
})

Save the file using Ctrl+x

Run

Start your node application. Use sudo if you are accessing the input/output pins. Don't forget to connect your raspicam so the users of your robot will be able to see what they are doing;

sudo node myRobot.js