[Solved] GoPiGo OS is currently pulled, so is Buster (October)

GoPiGo OS, DexterOS and Bloxter
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Since the base OS for GoPiGo OS and Raspbian for Robots Buster (October) is the new updated Raspberry Pi OS, and that one does not allow us to flash the firmware when on a Pi4, I’ve pulled these out and they are not currently available for downloading.

I am not able to revive my red board, so it’s pretty serious if you attempt to upgrade the firmware when using a Pi4. True, there’s no reason to upgrade it as we’ve been on the same firmware for over 2 years. However anyone following an old tutorial might be told to upgrade.

These OS images should be brought back online pretty soon.

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Possibly stupid question:

Have you tried it with a Pi-3 using either Stretch or an earlier version of R4R Buster, like the 2019-12-19 version? It has worked for me several times.

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Yes. I tried with a Pi3 and Buster from a year ago. No luck for my red board.

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Have you tried with the board and pi removed from the 'bot?

IMHO, the mating between the controller board and the Pi is somewhat marginal when assembled. (The connector isn’t fully seated.)

Also, AFIK, the only way that shouldn’t work is if the board itself was totally fried, and a blown firmware update shouldn’t brick the board so bad a bit-banged firmware load would fail.

You could also try the JTAG connection.

One other question:

What rev controller board did you use? Latest rev or the older red board?

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Adding @mitch.kremm since this is a product enhancement request

Any chance to add the PyPi package espeakng installation to the next version of Raspbian For Robots (PiOS based)?

# if "pip3 freeze | grep espeakng" does not show espeakng installed then:
# run "pip3 install espeakng"

import espeakng

tts = espeakng.Speaker()


tts.say("Thank You For Allowing Me To Say A Few Words.")

tts.voice = 'es'    # now speak Spanish
tts.say("nos vemos más tarde")

You all already have espeak-ng installed to R4R, but the very old (and not useful) “python-espeak==0.5” package is preloaded.

And for a WIBNI: someday add the espeakng Speaker instantiation to EasyGoPiGo3 and overload the say method to make the process of giving the GoPiGo a voice:

from easygopigo3 import EasyGoPiGo3

egpg = EasyGoPiGo3()


egpg.say("Look how easy it is to make your robot talk")
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Count me in on that one too!

IMHO, providing the GoPiGo with an easy way to become vocal would be a tremendous advantage, not to mention that a “talking robot” would have tremendous classroom appeal.

Not that it doesn’t already peg the “Cool Beanies!” meter, but a robot that can talk, and can possibly discuss/report on what it’s doing and or its surroundings, would have massive educational value and virtually magnetic student interest.

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For reference it is really is only a two line savings:

#!/usr/bin/env python3

# file: sayit.py

from easygopigo3 import EasyGoPiGo3
import espeakng

egpg = EasyGoPiGo3()
tts=espeakng.Speaker()



tts.say("Hello")
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9

Then what would the justification be?

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Philosophical unifying concept that the robot is not just the red board and the sensors/effectors attached through the red board.

Additionally, the GoPiGo/Dexter OS and R4R “Modular Robotics Operating Systems” have always chosen a text to speech engine to include, but since the GoPiGo robot did not unify / encapsulate text-to-speech making the robot talk was version dependent (espeak then espeakng) and not obvious (like putting an edit box on the control panel with a “Say” button, and having an EasyGoPiGo3.say() method).

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@cleoqc,
I don’t want to say “famous last words”, but I’d REALLY like to get my hands on that particular board of yours and attack it with a 'scope and logic analyzer.

Short of blasting it with a 10kv static arc, I cannot imagine what you could have done to blow it beyond the point of the JTAG-like recovery that OpenOCD does.

There’s a lot of stuff I really stink at, but one thing I’ll always put money on is my hardware skills.  I won’t say I’ve never been beat, but it’s damn seldom.

Back when I worked for Gull, building, testing, and repairing avionics for everything from tiny Cessna 172’s all the way past Boeing, McDonnel-Douglas, and Lockheed, all the way up to the Space Shuttle - I became “the last stop before the dumpster” for many a failed project. If I couldn’t figure it out, it was well and truly gone.

Software?  Total neo.
Social skills?  Abysmal.
Hardware and troubleshooting skills?  Phenomenal.

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Ooh ! I flew one of those! And I have (had?) my code flying in the Space Shuttle. High fives!

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Code in the space shuttle - that’s cool.
It’s been a good while since I’ve flown as PIC, but most of my hours were in 172s.
/K

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Outrageous!

Then you must have been one of the stars of the article They write the right stuff talking about the environment and excellence of the Shuttle [software] Group in Huston. Were you a part of that? Wow!

I’ve taken that document and distributed it everywhere I worked as a standard bearer that software engineering should be software engineering, not darts thrown at a B-tree.

They Write the Right Stuff.pdf.txt (56.7 KB)
Remove the “.txt” and enjoy!

I can’t say I’ve actually (at the controls) flown any real airplane in my life. However, my favorite sim aircraft is the 172.

Right near by in a local mall is an installation of the “Dream Aero” simulator that simulates a 737 cockpit in a full-motion environment. It costs like oil-rights to “fly” it, but if the pandemic doesn’t shut it down, I’m planning to take the granddaughters and myself to go fly it.

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A full motion simulator sounds fun - I hope it’s well done.
/K

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Look up “Dream Aero”. They might have one near you.

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