(Update: Some time after writing the below, I made this, that may interest people doing navigation with Picaxe)
How to make a robot do complicated tasks & "act alive".. With ease..
Here is one guys humble input - I am sure you all have your own ways of programming. Just take it for what it is; My personal thoughts, use what you can :)
Recently, since my "15 minutes of fame" with The drumming robot, I have been asked A LOT about code, how stuff was coded etc.
A nice guy like Fredrik Andersson is one of many who ask about "How to make that navigation of YDM (Yelow Drum Machine)" - A cool dude like Chris the Carpenter asks in general about obsticle avoidance and these things, and I get "wow" from others because I make "such complicated code"
"My secret" - to try to put it in a popular way - is that I do not "program the robot", "I teach the robot".
YDM has only the ability to look forward, and angled to left and right. And from these 3 angles I get distance.
How on earth would I program a robot with only this limited information to find objects worth playing drums on? How would I program it so that it looks "human" and is tracking down flat wide surfaces or stand-alone objects?
Truth is; I would not know how. The math in it would scare me, I would not have a clue.
And as many builders out there, I would start thinking about complicated sollutions to this complicated problem; I would build up neural networks, I would send data to a laptop, and have it calculate some heavy s**t in Java-simulators etc!
I would never get anything done if I where to program something like that!
So I teach the robot what to do instead.
What is the difference?
Well - if you are a good teacher, such as a parent to a child - you are able to, you naturally set yourself in the child´s position and limited understanding of the world.
So I put myself in the robot´s place, and this is what I have got:
3 bars.
Let us say that they look like this:
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Now what would that tell us - "us" being the robot? (Long lines means long distance.)
Well - this graphis shows it quite clearly I hope;
- There is something in front of us (middle one), but we are in an awkward angle to it (Left is much longer than right)
And here comes the teaching:
Look, dear robot, this is easy; For now, don't mind the middle one, try to focus on this: If one of the L/R are longer than the other, then snake with your belt-tracks a little to the side, and then measure again. And of course, dear robot; If there is MUCH difference between, then take a loong snake-step, and tiny if only a small difference.
.. That is what I would do with the information, and so I teach the robot that.
Ok, test see what it does.
Fine!! Of course it will now either face a wall flat, or get close to an object, or face a corner. This is the only 3 situations where L & R are the same length.
So.. when in the "face the object the right-way"- mode, just snake this way, slowly towards the object.
But.. So much snaking!!
If the angle was all right from the start, this snaking, looking, snaking .. is a very slow way to approach an object. And also if the angle was bad at the start, but is fine now, there is no reason to keep snaking.
So again.. Teach the robot;
Dear robot; If you have just snaked L/R/L/R or R/L/R/L .. well should we not think that perhaps half a "snake" to L or R would set it all in place, and you could just drive forward?
So, I enter a check in the code above, are we making L/R/L/R or R/L/R/L? If so go to this routine: Drive ahead, now only looking (and measuring) right ahead.
NEXT, the approach.. This is like kids, teaching one thing at a time..
Because then the robot has to know how close it should get.
I let it drive so close that the sensors still works, and then hard code that it should drive a little longer.
Hey - perhaps we where thrown into this situation, we did not snake into position, we got here somehow else - so let us just make an extra check if L&R are the same distance.
Step by step by step. Teaching it every one.
That way, I make a routine to find an object to play on, in a very short time, and everything works and is realistic all the time. I can tell how far I got; to the point where something is not working.. Teach!
And funny things then happens when it is uoyt in the real world- and you find that it will change from one thing it has learnt to another, acting to the soroundings, acting just as smart, funny and clever as youhave tought it.
But never as you planned - the robot is now on it´s own, with all your good teaching in it's suitcase.
I have only touched a very, very small area of the code in YDM here.
What is the bars looks like this:
- This is bad, we are facing a gap or a corner, etc. Each little situation; Teach the robot.
It is VERY important that each step you teach works.
Ver, as you will rely on it when you go to the next step. "I know that.. because the other routine does wor, so..". It is a good feeling leaving one routine after the other that just works, but it is of paramount importance also; You will get lost if not.
Do not try to make a fantastic robot that can do all sorts of complicated things. You will never get there!
Make sure that you teach your robot every little thing, step by step.
Often hooking up a speaker to a robot is a very good idea.
You can get a lot of feedback fast; High note-beep = this, and 3 low beeps = that etc..
You will be doing your robots over and over if you try to "think it all through". Don't.
Just be friendly and patient, and teach the little fellow one simple task at a time, and be sure he gets it before moving on to the next :)
There is not a way to program a robot to find objects to play drums on, and look human and intelligent while doing it - that is allmost impossible with only one sensor, and the limited CPU-ressources etc.
There are only steps that you can teach your robot, and each step is easy. Afterwards people will look at your child..erh robot, and wonder how you made it do such complicated things, and they will fail when trying to make something just as complicated :)
.. OH yes!! Look; Programming this way still may mean that you will redo code. Like if you climb a tree, even though you got to the top, or close, you may think that it was a stupid route you just took.
Smart thing is, you have done everything step-by step - (not a large fantastic formula) so you can just erase or alter a step or two, and get to the top in a smarter or better way..
But.. - the best thing about this way of coding (lot´s of little routines, one for each situation) is that the robot get's that "I am alive, and have personality - expression".
"Look - the robot saw that it was in a right angle already from a distance, and so it just drove up to the bottle and started playing on it.." "Look, it didn't want to play there, but hey, that is clever, because there is a gap there, and some mess over in the corner" - People may say about YDM.
Well - if you have read and understood the above, you know that the programmer was not really that clever, nor is the robot; It is just tought how to act smart in the situations. Not programmed to be smart and neural and intelligent and high end math and all the things they talk about :)
Have fun, teach and whatch and teach and whatch, don't try to program and get frustrated:)
/Fritsl
