day5_fri_jun28

To do:

1. Flash the SD card for Duckiebot 21M (hostname: leafduck)
2. Boot leafduck
3. Visit the Dashboard

Progress Report:

• Ran into issues when trying to flash the SD card.
  a. The terminal refreshed and did not recognize dts commands anymore. This is because I did not save the export file path properly. Checked the bug my teammate’s Bug Documentation and was able to solve the issue.
  
  b. Tried connecting to the ihart Wifi that is said to have less security than the school wifi, but SD card flashing did not work as it required a network connection (the ihart wifi did not have a network connection) for it to download files into the SD card and flash it.
  
  c. Lost connection in the middle of downloading files to SD card. Quit the terminal and remounted the SD card manually. Ran into an error of a file not able to be unzipped. Solved the issue by removing the file. More about the solution in the Bug Documentation. (It seems like the downloading part of the SD card burning process is the one that needs an internet connection.
  

• Booting the duckiebot a.k.a leafduck
  a. First try:
  [Good News] after SD card was flashed and inserted into leafduck, we turned on leafduck. leafduck’s headlights and rear lights were on, motor ran successfully, wifi adapter was blinking, and dashboard was on.
  
  – image: running dashboard
  
  [Bad News] leafduck did not show up in dts fleet discover.
  [Notes]
  -> When I did the dts init_sd_card command, I had put in two wifi network: LyonNet-Encrypt and ihart.
  – > when I hit enter after entering the password of ihart network connection, the password changes some symbols automatically (what could be the reason behind this?)
  Posted question in slack channel
  Link to similar question by another person
  
  b. Second try: Reflashed the SD card with only one wifi network: ihart.
  [Result] leafduck is not responding. Lights are red and green. Wifi dongle/adapter is not blinking. Motors are not running. Dashboard is not on. This maybe because of ihart wifi’s inability to connect to the internet. (i.e. cannot use google chrome and so on when our devices are connected to ihart).
  [Notes]
  Read logs from MHC alum from Professor Pon Berry’s lab. They had the same issue with the LyonNet-Encrypt connection. It looks like it finally worked out with Professor Melody Su’s imero internet connection.
  
  c. Came-by saturday morning to test duckiebot’s connection. When it is only connected to LyonNet-Encrypt, it is running (initialized the SD card to have only one wifi connection yesterday while re-flashing it). Headlights are white but the rear lights still red.

End-of-day
What worked:

1. leafduck was running well at the first initialization.
2. Conclusion:
   – duckiebot needs a working internet connection to run, e.g LyonNet-Encrypt and not ihart
   – LyonNet-Encrypt may have high security and so we are unable to see duckiebot through my laptop’s terminal when we do a dts fleet discover.
   

What didn’t work:

1. Getting leafduck to show up on dts fleet discover

Immediate Next Steps:

1. Give Professor Uwacu updates [slacked her]
2. Request a wifi network that is both personal and connects to the internet.
3. Literature review?

day4_thurs_jun27

To do:

1. Testing the duckiebot 21J with Ubuntu laptop and wifi connection
2. Complete setting up the assembly of duckiebots 21M
3. Booting duckiebots 21M with SD card and Ubuntu laptops

What worked well:

• Working on Duckiebot 21J network connection.
  – Yesterday, we left Duckiebot 21J to charge and finished flashing the SD card. Today, we first tried to boot the Duckiebot with LyonNet-Encrypt wifi but it did not work.
  – Then, we decided to add a new wifi configuration to the SD card. (The SD card was initialized with LyonNet-Encrypt). We had some errors here because we did not have the permission to change files and configurations on the SD card initially. Nevertheless, we were eventually able to work through it and have updated our Bug documentation with solutions.
  – After successfully adding the new wifi configuration (provided to us by Professor St. John), Duckiebot 21J still failed to show up when we tried to boot it and did a dts fleet discover command. One problem that may be behind this issue is that the LED of the Wifi adapter on the Duckiebot 21J is not blinking.
  
• Finished assembling my duckiebot 21M.
  It was great to work together and assemble the bot together as a team, as we could help each other out, remind each other of what steps needed to be completed, and kept me motivated. There was a lot of detail to pay attention to and having a team to double check each step was definitely helpful.
  
  Image: Assembled Duckiebot 21M
  

What didn’t work:

1. Duckiebot 21J is still not yet successfully recognized by doing a dts fleet discover command in the Booting setup step.

Immediate Next Steps:

1. Booting the finished Duckiebot 21M along with flashing its SD card, and setting up its Wifi adapter. (Really hoping to get Duckibot 21M setup and running by tomorrow ! >_< )

day3_wed_jun26

What I am working on:
1. Presented our updates at the department meeting.
– Received useful advice on the resources that we can use to move forward with our project.
2. Progressing on the Duckiebot setup
– We got an Ubuntu-installed Dell laptop each from the CS Department. Professor Uwacu created accounts for us.
– We borrowed 3 21M Duckiebots from Professor Su’s lab because the ones that were ordered for our lab were taking longer than expected to arrive.
– I installed Docker and the Duckie-town software on my assigned Ubuntu laptop. It went smoothly with a lot of help from the debugging documentation that my teammates had put together in the previous weeks.
– We are setting up the 21M Duckiebots together. It is currently in the process. We left the bot’s batteries to charge overnight and we will continue and finish the setup tomorrow. Tomorrow we get to test the network connection for the bot.
– Now that we have the wifi connected laptops, we are re-flashing the SD card of the Duckiebot 21J that we have been working on before. We didn’t get to test it out as we had to charge the Duckiebot 21J again.
Duckiebot 21M assembly link

What worked well:
1. Getting Ubuntu Dell Laptops that can connect to wifi, and setting up individual accounts
2. Installing software in the new laptops.

What didn’t work:
1. Testing the network connection of Duckiebot 21J.

What is the immediate next step:
1. Finish setting up the 3 21M Duckiebots.
2. Test the network connection of Duckiebot 21J

day2_tue_jun25

What I am working on:

1. Debugging the Duckiebot network connection issue. The duckiebot had multiple issues that had to be debugged. Our team posted these issues on the Duckietown slack channel and stack overflow. We got responses from the slack channel moderators that were useful for us. What we learned was that instead of having the duckie bots connect to the internet with the ethernet, it will be more fool-proof if we have a wireless connection that the computer and the duckie bots share.
   The computer is for flashing the SD card.

What worked well:

1. We got useful advice from the Duckietown Slack Channel.

What didn’t work:

1. The robots ordered are taking even longer to be shipped to us.
2. Not having a wireless connection on the computers in the lab.

What is the immediate next step:

1. Figuring out a way to connect to a wireless connection.

day1_mon_jun24

What I am working on:
This week, I am catching up on the installation and set-up progress on the duckie robot. We only have one robot at this time.

One part of our goal is to get the duckie robot to turn on. This means that the headlights, rear lights, the fan, and both the LEDs should be on. However, at this point, when the robot is turned on, only one of LEDs is on and all the other components are not. This is one problem to debug.

As our goal is to get the duckie robot running, we also need to get past the SD card and robot booting stage. As of now, the robot configurations are not appearing after we flashed the SD card, and did a dts fleet in the command line. This may be due to network connection problems that we are trying to figure out.

More duckie robots are due to arrive, and when they do, we will set up new accounts for each of them.

We are also reading literature on the research project. We are currently reading about MRSs and multi-robot systems. Here is the link to notes on the literature: https://docs.google.com/document/d/17bKv0_QQ93RqngGz05LTrI5CnpHPFweDpaAhP0KfzAQ/edit

What worked well:
1. I was able to review the literature with my teammate.
2. I was able to catch up on and understand the progress in the lab.

What didn’t work:

The point in the robot installation and setup we are stuck on: https://docs.duckietown.com/daffy/opmanual-duckiebot/setup/setup_boot/index.html

What is the immediate next step? :

1. Complete the notes for the literature review.
2. Figure out the network issue problem
3. (if robots arrive) start setting them up.