Ruby & Robotics?

Ruby
1

Hello all,
Does anybody know if there are any good implementations of Ruby in
basic
robotics? I want to learn some robotics (basic ground-level stuff, i.e.
how
to control servos from a computer with ruby) and I don’t really want to
do
it in Java when I know Ruby and love it so much :). Also, anybody know a
good place to start for getting into that kind of stuff?

Thanks,
Mike

2

Michael Craig wrote:

Hello all,
Does anybody know if there are any good implementations of Ruby in basic
robotics? I want to learn some robotics (basic ground-level stuff, i.e. how
to control servos from a computer with ruby) and I don’t really want to do
it in Java when I know Ruby and love it so much :). Also, anybody know a
good place to start for getting into that kind of stuff?

Thanks,
Mike

This is something related I came across before. Though as much as I
like Ruby, it’s not really the right tool for the job.

http://rad.rubyforge.org/

3

Michael Craig wrote:

Hello all,
Does anybody know if there are any good implementations of Ruby in basic
robotics? I want to learn some robotics (basic ground-level stuff, i.e. how
to control servos from a computer with ruby) and I don’t really want to do
it in Java when I know Ruby and love it so much :). Also, anybody know a
good place to start for getting into that kind of stuff?

In general, no, but at a RubyConf a few years ago (2003, I guess),
Shashank D. showed off controlling a Lego Mindstorms assembly using
Ruby.

http://rubyforge.org/projects/lego-mindstorms/

If you google a bit you’ll find more links about Ruby and Mindstorms

–
James B.

www.happycamperstudios.com - Wicked Cool Coding
www.jamesbritt.com - Playing with Better Toys
www.ruby-doc.org - Ruby Help & Documentation
www.rubystuff.com - The Ruby Store for Ruby Stuff

4

On Sun, Aug 17, 2008 at 6:47 PM, Michael Craig
[email protected] wrote:

Hello all,
Does anybody know if there are any good implementations of Ruby in basic
robotics? I want to learn some robotics (basic ground-level stuff, i.e. how
to control servos from a computer with ruby) and I don’t really want to do
it in Java when I know Ruby and love it so much :). Also, anybody know a
good place to start for getting into that kind of stuff?

If you already have a java api to your hardware controller, you can
write your program in jruby and use the java calls

martin

5

Michael Craig wrote:

Hello all,
Does anybody know if there are any good implementations of Ruby in
basic
robotics? I want to learn some robotics (basic ground-level stuff, i.e.
how to control servos from a computer with ruby) and I don’t really want
to do it in Java when I know Ruby and love it so much :). Also, anybody
know a good place to start for getting into that kind of stuff?

Thanks,
Mike

Actually, real robotic systems need to be real-time systems, running on
Real-time operating systems such as the Linux + Xenomai real-time
extension
patch. But, for testing certain alghoritms, I think ruby could act as
Matlab, for prototyping. But you need to have in mind that you will need
to
port the final alghoritm to C ou C++, since, usually, real-time system
APIs
are written in those languages…

Writing realtime systems in languages such as Ruby or Java (both have
garbage collector) is not reliably (actually it is impossible in Ruby,
currently, as far as I know).

Good luck!

Rodrigo.