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Desktop Robotic Companion

 What’s up Tinker gang. I’m back with another update to my robotic experiments.  I’ve already created a pretty stable robotic companion, but now that this companion can travel, I don’t like it super close to me because of dust and dirt. I now want something near me as I’m working on my computer, and have found a pretty cool opensource project to start from.  You may know the project as Emo on YouTube, this humanoid desktop robot rotates its body and arms , as well as displays facial animations thanks to its tiny face screen. I liked the concept and wanted to play with the designs. First, I wanted to add a way for the device to have extra gpio hats. The original design tucks the computer inside the body shell but I needed room for a microphone and any other thing I wanted to add. I thought about a few possibilities, including some kind of backpack (which I still may use later) on the bot but I didn’t like my mental designs. Instead, I decided to increase the height of the base and add
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Places To Start

 


   Ok so boom.........as a programmer, you create instructions in a particular language (or languages) on a particular computer. The first thing I'd say that is the most important thing to do as a beginner, is just starting to code. The language that is the easiest for you to run without any setup requirements, is the best language for you right now. 

What do I mean by that?

Software you can run without installing a million tools, slowing down your hardware, making it think too much for you just to get familiar with the landscape. You may have borrowed your mom's computer to do these tutorials(which already runs slow). They shouldn't break her device just so that you can run a few lines of code.

After you're familiar with how code can move in a certain language, you now have a base to compare to, and can move to another language. But which language should this final language be??

 First, there is no limit to the amount of languages you can learn. It'll just be difficult managing the rules of each language. Secondly, you should be learning the language that is most useful to your ideas/plans/applications, languages that are popular, or languages that are old but require human touch. (That last one is mostly a job security finesse, as companies have this situation a-lot, leading them to train new employees to run code nobody uses anymore.....This can be lucrative $$$).

For me, writing code in css , javascript and html (internet / web languages) gave me the most freedom and best experience becoming a programmer. 

  • They only require an internet connection for the tutorials , which can be downloaded
  • They are popular languages and the backbone of internet software
  • They can control not only back-end(code you don't see or expect to see) but front-end as well(code you see visually, color, graphs etc...). This is important because with these 3 languages and no professional experience, you can create animations, and games all from your desktop.
You don't have to use those to start but, I highly advise it. Now to the main portion of this post.... 

References:

Web/server/more...
https://www.w3schools.com/

UI + Science + Web
https://tutsplus.com/

Programming Help / Community (All languages subjects)
www.stackoverflow.com

Random Help /Community (All subjects not just software)
www.stackexchange.com

Open Source Code/projects
https://github.com/

Coding can be very difficult , so it's best to stay informed and always have a template or something to compare against. The references above are a great place to acquire a firm base of software knowledge, and to reach out and network with more experienced people than yourself. Just be aware, that the dev community love people that read and can follow directions...oh and also a good screen shot of any problem that you may have.

I hope this post was helpful, ya'll be easy, and feel free to comment any other useful links as well.



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