I’m a part of a group responsible for creating a robot that can interact with a toy piano. It’s designed for kids who have cerebral palsy. The interface that was chosen is the Boardmaker software and there are buttons to represent each piano key. The child chooses one in the software by using a switch and the robotic arm is supposed to hit the key.
Through Boardmaker you can launch an external program from a button and pass arguments to it. I posted a help request on the RIOS forum about the existence of a command line argument that would close RIOS after it executed a command. If this isn’t possible then we will either have to manually close the program after each button selection or use a programming language to do it for us. The languages available (based upon collective knowledge) are C++, Java, Python, and Assembly.
I haven’t quite given up on a simple command line solution, but if we do have to use a language, how would we interact with the arm?
I’m clueless as to how the touch screen works, but if it works with a web brouser like IE where links can be touched similar to clicking with a mouse, then you may be in luck. If it does work with a web brouser, you could make a web page with the keys and control the arm similar to to my web cam below. You could also make a simple GUI to do something similar using a simple programming language like justbasic. Just some ideas to explore.
If, as I understand it, Boardmaker can call up a program when each key is pressed, then I’d consider calling up a batch file (old DOS batch file, .BAT).
Each batch file could have serial command line statements that would send one or more SSC32 commands to the SSC32. Or I suppose a Java or Python script could do the job (I don’t work with those).
Does Boardmaker have any “printing” capabilities? If so, printing to a serial output device might accomplish what you need.
Some particular reason for using Boardmaker? Visual Basic could allow the creation of a multitude of buttons on a screen, and would send a string to a com device for you.
Maybe you want a picture of a piano keyboard on the PC screen?
We’re using Boardmaker because that’s what our faculty advisor gave us. It already has alternate methods of access built in. They use scanning for people with cerebral palsy. It highlights buttons first by row then by column (if necessary) when the user hits their switch. They ultimately select the button they want when it’s highlighted by the program.
The interface looks like a piano complete with the keys (Flickr). The only way Boardmaker allows interaction with an external program is by clicking a button.
I’ll look into the batch file option. We may decide to just close RIOS after the commands are executed. Our task was to get the arm to move according to what command was given via the interface. One of the graduate students can pick up where we left off.
We’ve decided to use a batch file. Thanks to everyone for their help. I do have one more question, though. We’re using a custom configuration. What are the commands to allow us to load it? Could we use a configuration file?
