ControlBot

This is a JQuery interface to control the mc_hammer_bot robot. It was an assignment at @bitmakerlabs to learn AJAX in an fun and awesome way.

Completed features

• User interface
• Send AJAX commands to robot
• Allow multiple axes (e.g. strafe, turn, forward) to be sent at once
• Add turn buttons to the UI
• Add keybindings

To do list in priority order

• Add a throttle to control the speed (never completed)

Lessons learned

Coding yourself into a corner.

I tried to make a safe (read: "rigid") JavaScript API for sending commands to the robot. I made simple functions like reverse(), turnLeft(), etc. But as new requirements were introduced (e.g. control multiple axes at once, non 100% speed), my API fell apart. You eventually end up wishing you could drop one level lower and just write directly.

Lesson learned: don't over-engineer things in a proof of concept. Good APIs grow organically, they're not designed up front.