robots

setup

1. Clone down this repo
2. cd into your cloned repo and run npm install
3. If the package install fails, it is probably because one or more packages are trying to use an old version of serialport. See below for details.
4. Create a new bot for your slack team at https://YOURTEAM.slack.com/services/new/bot
5. Create a .env file based on .env-example and paste in your slack bot API token
6. Run index.js on a server, or use npm run devstart to run using nodemon for testing new changes

Setting up sphero

1. Follow the instructions for pairing with your spehro over on the sphero.js readme
2. Copy the serial port address from the pairing instructions and set var spheroport to equal it on line 14 of src/sphero.js (yes, this should and will be part of the .env file in future)
3. With the server running and connected to slack, send your slack bot a message containing "wake up" to connect the cylon script to your sphero. Once the sphero lights up white it is ready to recieve further commands via the chat bot.

Available commands

These are commands that you can send to your slack bot that are currently set up to have some sort of response. Currently all commands will be acted upon if they are sent via a direct message to the bot or if they are sent over a channel the bot is a member of and they include the word "tay" (the name of the original bot, you can change this on src/slackResponses:3) All commands currently send a chat response as well as any other action they take. Commands ignore capitalization. Many commands change text on the page served at index.html in minor ways.

Command contains words	Action	Notes
Hey OR hi OR hello	Chat response only	Full wordlist on line 124
Tuesday	Chat response only	none
Thanks	Chat response only	none
Awake AND ?	Chat response only	none
Hate	Chat response only	none
Play	Chat response only	none
Fake	Chat response only	none
Heartbreak	Chat response only	none
Paint AND (a colour)	Sets page at index.html and sphero's LEDs to chosen colour	Colour list on line 126-128
Dance	Makes sphero wiggle on the spot	none
Wander	Makes the sphero roll around in random directions	More commands line 125
Roll (direction) (number) seconds)	Makes the sphero roll in a specified direction for a certain amount of time	Strict syntax, only available in direct messages
Stop	Stop the sphero if it is moving	none
Calibrate	Put sphero in calibration mode	none
Done calibrating	Turn off calibration mode	none
Wake up	Attempt to connect to the sphero	This crashes the server if the sphero can't be found(BUG)
Good night	Disconnect from the sphero	After calling this using 'wake up' will not be able to find the sphero(BUG)
tay clear	Responds in chat with many newlines to clear spam, for testing	Strict syntax

Any other message sent to the bot will only get a chat response.

Adding commands

It is pretty easy to add your own commands for your tayBot. In src/slackResponses.js imply add a new conditional after line 4 using the following form:

    if(message.text.includes("YOUR KEYWORDS")){
      response = "DESIRED RESPONSE"
    }

If you want to make some more complex responses, try logging the message object to see what you can access. You can also check out the examples at https://github.com/slackhq/node-slack-client which this bot uses, or study the existing code in this project to see how multiple inputs can lead to the same response using javascripts .some function.

If you want your slack command to control the sphero, include an io.emit() function inside the conditional, and then in src/sphero.js include an javascript io.on function inside the work block (beginning line 29), which can then include cylon code.

Serialport problems

The current version of cylon-sphero uses an old version of serialport which was not compatible with my mac, and may well not be compatible with your machine. You can try to use the official version by removing "sphero": "flinnja/sphero.js" from the dependencies in package.json and running npm install sphero instead, but by using my forked version at https://github.com/Flinnja/sphero.js you will be using the latest version of serialport which should be more compatible.