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Bots / The Ultimate Palm Robot/ Mukhar & Johnson / 222880-6 / Chapter 5

104 The Ultimate Palm Robot

Working with the Robot
After unpacking the software, you can start trying out some of the applica-
tions. Acroname supplies several applications for working with the
BrainStem controller and the robot. The Config program provides a way to
test the analog sensors and servos of the PPRK. The GP program is similar to
the Config program, but it’s a more general purpose program. Finally, the
Console program provides a way to load and launch programs with the
BrainStem. All three of these programs are located in the \aBinary directory
of the Win and Mac distributions. If you have the Palm OS versions, the files
you need will be in the \brainstem directory.
If you simply want to test that your robot is operating correctly, you should
run the Config or GP application. To execute a program for the robot, run the
Console application. Note that because all three applications communicate
with the BrainStem using the same connection, they cannot be run at the same
time; only one of the three applications can be running at any given time.

Config
The PPRK Config program is closely tied to the PPRK. The Config application
allows you easily to check the function and orientation of the servos and rang-
ers on the SV203 and Brainstem PPRK robots.
To install the Config application to your Palm OS device, all of these five
files need to be loaded to the PDA:
❏ Config.prc
❏ aIO.pdb
❏ aPPRK.pdb

❏ aStem.pdb
❏ aUI.pdb
Once all five files have been transferred, start the Config application by
tapping the Config icon on the Palm’s Application Launcher screen. For the
Windows or Mac version of the application, launch the Config executable
from the \aBinary directory.

NOTE: It is entirely possible that later versions of the Acroname software
will have different or more .pdb files. If you download Config from Acroname,
and it does come with different .pdb files, load them all to your PDA.
You can see that the PPRK Config displays a graphical representation of the
PPRK in Figure 5-1 for the Palm OS version of the program and Figure 5-2 for

P:\010Comp\Bots\880-6\ch05.vp
Monday, May 12, 2003 4:06:11 PM