How to install education robotics

In order to use this project, we must install first ROS (tested on Jade and kinectic), then compile the project and finally run some simulations and tests.

you can choose between two options:

• Use virtual machine which has already everything ready (windows users)
• Install ROS and dependencies in your own ubuntu computer

Prepare virtual machine

• Download virtual machine from: https://goo.gl/gnFGAz
• Install VMware player (free for non-commercial application) from: http://www.vmware.com/products/player/playerpro-evaluation.html
• Uncompress virtual machine and open it using VMware workstation player
• Please disable 3D acceleration graphics, it is not supported by gazebo simulator
• the user is : ubuntu and password: ubuntu

If you get access to virtual machine successfully, then you can go to last section “Test project”.

If you have an ubuntu PC and want to install the project locally, please follow the next tutorial:

Install ROS and dependencies

Follow ros installation procedure:

http://wiki.ros.org/kinetic/Installation/Ubuntu

we can summarize the steps:

Open a command windows on ubuntu and run the following commands:

• Prepare ubuntu for installation:

sudo sh -c 'echo "deb http://packages.ros.org/ros/ubuntu $(lsb_release -sc) main" > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/ros-latest.list'
sudo apt-key adv --keyserver hkp://ha.pool.sks-keyservers.net:80 --recv-key 0xB01FA116
sudo apt-get update

• Install ROS

For PC/Laptop we should install full desktop version:

sudo apt-get install ros-kinetic-desktop-full

For Raspberry PI 2 and Odroid we can install ROS-Base:

sudo apt-get install ros-kinetic-ros-base

Install rosdep:

sudo rosdep init
rosdep update

And finally prepare environment:

echo "source /opt/ros/kinetic/setup.bash" >> ~/.bashrc
source ~/.bashrc

Compile project (Only for local installation)

This step is only required if you install the project locally, please skip it if you use virtual machine.

First we need to install some dependencies and ROS packages:

sudo apt-get install libqwt-dev ros-kinetic-teleop-twist-joy  ros-kinetic-rviz-imu-plugin python-smbus ros-kinetic-rqt-multiplot git

Finally we create a workspace for project, clone github repository, install dependencies and compile it:

mkdir -p ~/catkin_ws/src
cd ~/catkin_ws/src
git clone https://github.com/francisc0garcia/education_robotics
cd ..
catkin_make

If you get some error during compilation, check if all dependencies are installed using:

Test project

Once the project has been compiled successfully, we can run a simulation that includes a simple robot + environment.

cd ~/catkin_ws
source devel/setup.bash
roslaunch education_robotics demo_robot_simple.launch

if everything is correct, you should see a robot moving with predefined steps.

Now you are ready to play and extend the project, let’s go to section Tutorials and extensions.