This page describes how to set up and run a practical session. We assume that your computer has been booted on the Linux Ubuntu operating system (available in the classroom). So if your are currently on Windows, you have to restart your machine to boot on Ubuntu instead.
First, open the file manager by clicking on the icon that looks like a yellow folder in the menu vertical bar on the left of the desktop. Go in Documents and create a new folder called rti2016 (right-click in the file manager window and choose Carpeta nova). This is in this folder that we will copy all the material necessary for the practical sessions.
Then, download the V-REP robot simulator here. Save it in the directory we just created, which is Documents/rti2016.
Once the download is done, go to the Documents/rti2016 directory in the file manager. Extract the archive by right-clicking on it and choosing Extreu aquì. You can delete the archive file (the one ending by .tar.gz), we'll not use it.
We need to make a modification in this freshly extracted folder. Go in it and open the file called remoteApiConnections.txt. At the very end of it, copy and paste the following lines (but don't remove anything that was already present in the file):
// Additions to deal with multi-robot setup
portIndex2_port = 19998
portIndex2_debug = false
portIndex2_syncSimTrigger = true
portIndex3_port = 19999
portIndex3_debug = false
portIndex3_syncSimTrigger = true
portIndex4_port = 20000
portIndex4_debug = false
portIndex4_syncSimTrigger = true
portIndex5_port = 20001
portIndex5_debug = false
portIndex5_syncSimTrigger = true
portIndex6_port = 20002
portIndex6_debug = false
portIndex6_syncSimTrigger = true
portIndex7_port = 20003
portIndex7_debug = false
portIndex7_syncSimTrigger = true
Now open a terminal (the >_ icon on the left pane of your desktop). Go to the directory you've just extracted by entering the following command (press Enter to execute it):
cd Documents/rti2016/V-REP_PRO_EDU_V3_3_2_64_Linux
And run the simulator by executing:
./vrep.sh
At this point you should see the V-REP simulator graphical interface. Contact the teacher if it is not the case.
Now let's download the material for the practical session. Open another terminal with a middle-click on the >_ icon. Go to the rti2016 directory as before:
cd Documents/rti2016
Then copy the material of the session on your machine by running:
git clone https://github.com/clement-moulin-frier/pyvrep_epuck.git
We also need to install a few extra libraries. To do so, once the previous command has terminated, execute the following:
git clone https://github.com/clement-moulin-frier/pypot.git
as well as this one:
git clone https://github.com/certik/enum34.git
Now we have everything we need. Go to the practical session directory by typing:
cd pyvrep_epuck/notebooks
Start the interactive environment we'll use in the practical sessions by typing:
ipython notebook
This will open a new page in your browser (usually the page appears in Firefox). Click on the practical session you want to open (start with the 1st one of course, which is called practical_session_1.v3.ipynb). This will open a document in a new tab in your browser.
The rest of the session is described in this freshly opened document, please continue from there.