If you want to control a stationary arm with PD it will depend on the device. Since it's stationary USB or serial is likely. Are you looking at buying something premade or making it yourself?
If you buy something premade I would imagine it works like any other peripheral: you'll need a driver and a program to interface with the driver. The arm would likely come with some program that lets you do basic programming of tasks. It would be possible, most likely, again depending on the particulars, to get PD to talk to the robot directly with some hacking. How easy that would be would depend on how the arm is implemented. You might even be able to find one that can be controlled with MIDI or OSC using some third party intermediary.
If you want to build it yourself you can decide how you want to interface with it. There are PIC microcontrollers with built in USB, serial, and a new one with ethernet coming out soon. The BASIC Stamp probably comes in various flavors as well. But this is probably too involved for you, since you want to avoid C programming, which probably also means you want to avoid assembler programming ;)
A nice middle route would be Lego RCX. They're lego robots--really easy to build and programmable in a few different languages, including Java. They have all kinds of third party "bricks" that let you add ultrasound sensors, IR sensors, and probably some sort of serial port. You can also use their included IR tower for communication. Here's a page http://www.sckans.edu/~sireland/webcam/webrcx/ that has code to let you control an RCX over the web.
Look around at the options and figure out what you'd like to do specifically and I can give you more pointers.
-Ian
Robert Garvin wrote:
Ok.. here's the deal. The printer is usb, and I've used the HID object, and it didn't recognize it (it may have, but it was on a usb hub.) also, the robot would be connected via usb. I thought about the wireless idea, and thought about the wireless mouse, but I wasn't sure if the part that plugs into the port had both a send and receive function to transmit info. An IR port would be neat, except it would force the robot to stay within line-o-sight (or reflections) of the port (this wouldn't be a problem if the robot was a stationary arm, which is what I think I should start with.
-Robert
-----Original Message----- From: Ian Smith-Heisters [mailto:heisters@0x09.com] Sent: Saturday, March 26, 2005 3:58 PM To: Robert Garvin Cc: pd-list@iem.at Subject: Re: [PD] controlling robots/printers w/ PD
I'm not too sure about the printer... it depends if it's USB or parallel. I'm sure either one is doable, and probably without writing in C(++). *maybe* Hans-Christoph Steiner's HID object if it's USB. I haven't used it yet, but I hear good stuff.
But for the robot, I use a serial port to communicate to a Microchip PIC which can trigger all sorts of motors, lights, sensors, etc. Again, it depends on the interface. I have no idea what sort of communication pre-built robots use. Maybe the IR port on most laptops? But if you want to use a serial port, there's a [comport] external. I mean, you could build a robot with a wireless ethernet connection, which you could pilot over the web using a joystick. (hmm... that sounds like a fun project)
If you're more specfic about the printer/robot/gizmo I'm sure I (and others around these parts) could be of more help.
-Ian
Robert Garvin wrote:
I was wondering if there was already an external to control a printer or a robot with PD. If not, does anyone know how I would go about writing one? I understand that if you were to write a binary, you'd probably have to understand C (or C+ or C++. whatever it's called). Obviously, I don't understand any of it. If anyone can help me, let me know.
Thanks,
Robert
P.s. (if there is an external for the robot stuff, is there a specific kit that would be best for PD?)