SIUE Web Robot Online

[Jerry]

The School of Engineering’s Web Controlled Robot is now online!

You can control the robot by going to roboti.cs.siue.edu  

Please come and test it out.

The robot, Taz, will be available for limited hours throughout the week. Taz’s schedule can be found on roboti.cs.siue.edu

The Web Controlled Robot is part of an ongoing project to bring hands-on robotics projects into education. You can read more about the project and the group of faculty involved at www.cs.siue.edu/robotics

The main audience for the Web Controlled Robot is Middle and High School classes. There is some additional education material available at the site as well as information about the project. If you know any Middle and High School Teachers please make them aware of Taz.

 

[Jerry]

I forgot to mention.  If you have suggestions for improvements to the web site or the robot controls please post them.

Thanks.

[Stiffler]

I have bibs on sending it down the spiral staircase  :-P

About the website: Well, at least there's consistency across SIUE webpages.

GOOOO

Jon

[R. Andrew Lamonica]

I am glad you are wearing a bib, but don’t you think one is enough.  

As for sending the robot down the stairs, it should be impossible.  The robot has been given set places that it can move, and although there are many of these (over 650 in the map that includes the Atrium) the stairs in not one of them.  Neither are the bathrooms or the classrooms, before you ask.  I am not sure I understand your consistency joke.  If you are referring to the title bar that includes links to the CS Dept. and Engineering School web pages, then there is nothing I can do.  We need to have these links as tributes to and advertisements for the institutions that paid (many thousands of dollars) for the robots.  I will humor suggestions about how to make these links more interesting, but it is not on the top of my list to change them soon.

[Stiffler]

Well, we all now what a bad typist I am. I'm sure you've seen all my spelling mistakes.

I'm sure there is a bug in the system somewhere that would allow someone to send it down the stairs.

As far as the consistency joke, maybe you don't really want to know what I mean by that. Although, the answer does lie in another post on this forum.  :-P

Jon

[Ryan Lintker]

There are alot of other things that can get that robot in trouble other than running it down the stairs.  (Begin fit of evil laughter)  I hope it handles tables a little better these days.

Does it run without a babysitter yet?

[R. Andrew Lamonica]

I babysit it, but I do it from a workstation instead of actually watching it.  To answer your question about tables, we are not allowing it to go very far into the atrium at this time because we do not have a good map to work with.

[Jerry]

We are hoping to get it to a point that a babysitter is unnecessary.

This is the most extensive testing we've done yet, so please come and try it out, and then come back here and give us some constructive feedback on the controls and the website.

We've uncovered some interesting problems and challenges:

1. Found a couple of race conditions that we think are fixable.

2. Some users do not understand the arrow controls. A few did not recognize that the arrows needed to be clicked. And a few thought that the arrows needed to be held down rather than clicked once.

3. Atrium navigation remains a problem because of its dynamic nature. Currently we limit access to the atrium which works well, but we want to solve the problem. Andrew has an idea for an interesting project to solve this. We have mounted a second camera on the robot, it will point down at the floor. Using image processing the robot can use crossing of tile lines as a way to localize in dynamic areas.

4. Some people did not know how to get their name off the waitlist. They just wanted to watch a while without controlling, but did not know how to "quit" controlling. All they needed to do was click under "Watch", but this was not evident to them.

Post any ideas you might have on improvements. Thanks.

[Kade P. Cole]

One suggestion is to try and add a Countdown timer to the web java interface. I sometimes forget to look at the page and missed my turn. It would be better user feedback then the messages that are displayed now.

[Jerry]

There is a minute counter when you are in the wait list. Maybe we need to make it more visible?

[Kade P. Cole]

No that is plenty visible for me. I want a second countdown. So then I can know much closer than a whole minute.  :-P

[R. Andrew Lamonica]

As you may remember from our SP presentation, we had a second counter originally, but there were several problems with using it in a real setting.  One, it is hard to synchronize N (number of applets) clocks to the second, particularly when you are limited to java 1.1 (the last version IE supported without download) which does not have a timer event, just a sleep() command.  Two, when someone leaves the list ahead of you or forfeits part of their turn the time will change and an exact count looks stranger jumping around then an inexact estimate does.  Three, your turn does not start until the pervious person’s last move completes.  If we move the grid points further apart or if the robot is busy avoiding someone then your turn could start a good ten seconds after the counter reaches zero. This seems to be impossible to predict because it is so dependent on the environment.  So, to solve this unpredictability, for some of the last minute the counter reads, â€Ã...“prepare for your turn to startâ€Ã, instead of giving a countdown.  If you have a good idea of how to compensate for any or all of these problems without too terrible a bandwidth increase, please suggest it.

BTW. Adding an auditory cue that it is your turn has been discussed.  I think this is possible, but I would have to look into it further.

[Stiffler]

You could use a Macromedia Flash counter. Just about every one has the plug in. I know the new Flash MX can be updated externally, so the core server could be written in the new versions of Java. Just a thought.

Jon

[R. Andrew Lamonica]

Kade,
Have you used  your Mac to control the robot?  I have heared from one user that the applet does not work on MacOSX.  I don't have any way to check this, but it is very annoying if it is true.

[Guest]

Yes. I have used Safari and Mozilla under Mac OS X. It seems to work just fine. There are some issues with the Text being readable (happens sometimes see picture). I have had some problems but usually reloading the page fixes that and I have those problems with java on all platforms. Hope this helps you.  :-P

[R. Andrew Lamonica]

That is odd.  I suspect that it is a difference in the order controls of the same depth are drawn on the applet.  I will look into bringing the text to the front somehow.  I looked again at the message I got from the Mac User.  He does not describe exactly what he sees or send a picture, but I think he was able to see the text, but not control the robot.  Have you tried moving the robot around with your Mac.  If not let me know at my SIUE e-mail account or phone at 2398 and I’ll work out a time for you to give it a go.  I have used the system on a Linux PC, and the only problem was the refresh of the image.  I am having problems with that on Windows PC’s as well, but it is less pronounced.  There will be at least two tests times next week, and probably three depending on a possible conflict I have with the Wednesday hours.

[R. Andrew Lamonica]

There are three problems with this solution; however, you may be gratified to hear that we did consider using Flash during the original design.

1. Flash is not as widely distributed as Java.  Many Linux systems do not have support. Java is much more powerful programming language than the jscript attached to Flash and there was a strong possibility that we would have needed to use Java in some way to support the Flash regardless.  This would require all our users to have both, thus reducing the number of people we support.

2. Flash’s Clock does not run at a consistent interval.  I did two Flash assignments in Flash MX for my CyberArts class http://www.siue.edu/~rlamoni/flashAssignment.swf (is the cooler one) the other was a clock and it was hard to keep it synced with the local users system clock.  This would make it near impossible to keep synced with a remote server.

3. Flash has limited server interaction.  One of the reasons we ditched Flash was that it did not support real sockets.  It only supports something called XML Sockets.  Now I know what XML is and I know what Sockets are and I have used both extensively, but I cannot think of a way to merge them that would not be silly or restrict the user to accessing static-data only.

Flash has no doubt improved since I used it last, but my limited experience with it leads me to conclude that it would be better for client-side interactions then for server-client interactions.