Page 169 - Hacking Roomba

150 Part II — Fun Things to Do

FIGURE 7-6: RoombaView running

Summary

With Processing and RoombaComm together, you can quickly create all sorts of Roomba pro-
grams to try out various ideas you might have. Maybe you can improve RoombaView to have a
calibrated grid and try to map out your living room. Or you can push Roomba around and use
its bump sensors and motion tracking as a big stylus to draw on the screen. Or use the mouse to
control the robot somehow. Make a video game with Roomba. Even simple little 20-line sketches
that experiment with different movement modes are easy and fun. Anything Roomba can sense,
you can display graphically, and it’s easy to take user input and cause Roomba to act on it.
You can also extend Processing to have more features. You have a choice of many existing Java
libraries that could be useful when programming Roomba. You now know how to pack a Java
library for use with Processing and invoke the library from within Processing. Search around
on http:/freshmeat.net/ for interesting bits of Java code you could incorporate into your
Roomba sketches.
Create real applications for yourself or your friends using the Processing Export ability. When
you create an interesting application, upload it to http://roombahacking.com/ so others
can experiment and play with it.