Rovercode is easy-to-use package for controlling robots (rovers) that can sense and react to their environment. The Blockly editor makes it easy to program and run your bot straight from your browser. Just drag and drop your commands to drive motors, read values from a variety of supported sensors, and see what your rover sees with the built in webcam viewer.

Rovercode runs on a Raspberry Pi 3 with the GrovePi+ sensor board and the Grove I2C motor controller board.

First, create an app.rovercode.com account here. Then, navigate to the "My Rovers" section and create a new rover. Once it is created, click the "Download Credentials" button at the bottom of the rover's detail page. The file will download as something like rovercode_yourrovername.env. Save this file to a flash drive.

This setup is tested on Raspbian Stretch. There may be issues on Raspbian Buster.

First, on your Raspberry Pi:

$ sudo apt-get update
$ curl -sSL https://get.docker.com | sh
$ sudo raspi-config # choose "5 Interfacing Options", then choose P5 I2C and enable it.
$ docker pull rovercode/rovercode-arm
$ sudo wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/rovercode/rovercode/development/services/rovercode-commissioning.service /etc/systemd/system/
$ sudo wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/rovercode/rovercode/development/services/rovercode.service /etc/systemd/system/
$ sudo systemctl enable rovercode-commissioning.service  # An error about the file already existing is ok.
$ sudo systemctl enable rovercode.service  # An error about the file already existing is ok.
# Turn off your Raspberry Pi, insert your thumbdrive with the `rovercode_yourrovername.env` file, and turn the Raspberry Pi back on.

Once the Raspberry Pi restarts, the commissioning service should run, followed by the rovercode service. Run sudo systemctl status rovercode.service to confirm that it is running. Then, on any PC or tablet, head to app.rovercode.com to connect to your rover.

When developing Rovercode, you may want to run Rovercode on your PC instead of a Raspberry Pi. Below are instructions for how to install and run Rovercode on your PC.

$ git clone --recursive https://github.com/rovercode/rovercode.git && cd rovercode
$ docker build -t rovercode .
# Copy in the `rovercode_yourrovername.env` file as `.env` (nothing before the dot)
$ cp ~/Downloads/rovercode_yourrovername.env .env
$ docker run --env DEVELOPMENT=true --name rovercode -v $PWD:/var/rovercode rovercode

Note the --env DEVELOPMENT=true flag. Then, still on your development PC, head to app.rovercode.com and connect to your "rover" (your PC running the service).

Run the tests like this:

$ docker run --name rovercode-tests -v $PWD:/var/rovercode --entrypoint=/bin/bash rovercode -c 'python -m pytest'
$ docker run --name rovercode-tests -v $PWD:/var/rovercode --entrypoint=/bin/bash rovercode -c 'prospector'

More detailed usage instructions can be found here.

Read the complete docs here.

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