This is Kevin, the irresponsible adult who is mentoring this team of delinquents. Being the adult and the mentor, everyone expects me to know something about robots.
Well, I have a secret: I actually know very little about robots.
I've been a regular volunteer at NI Raspberry Jam for years, so you'd think I know something about the Pi. I do not. There are people far younger and smarter than me that get all the Pi's set up before I get there. Then I maybe do a workshop, or I scuttle around the outside helping the kids who are lagging behind a bit. Then when it's shutdown time, I let the smart people take down all the hardware, and I stack chairs and things.
So... today I dedicated myself to getting the Brick Pi working. Here's how I did it.
Step 1: Google & Youtube
This is always the first step. Thankfully, we all carry the entire bank of human knowledge in our pockets, and despite the fact that most of us use it for cat videos, there is some useful stuff in here, like...
Step 2: It's Called "Headless Mode"
Raspberry Pi's are loaded up with lots of ports and plugs, which are great if you have monitor and keyboard and mouse. I do not have these things. Instead, my house is full of laptops. If you want to get your Pi working over a laptop, that's called Headless Mode.
Here are the best links I found to get me on the right track:
Dexter Industries: Getting Started << Specific to the BrickPi
The first one - Dexter Industries - are the makers of the BrickPi, so they've got the most specific information about the box that I am holding... but they make some grand assumptions, like that I would know a whole lot more about basic Pi than I do. The other two sites helped fill in the gaps.
Step 3: Follow Instructions Blindly
The TL;DR version goes a little something like this:
Download the Raspbian image. Raspbian is RPi's operating system. Dexter has a special version called Raspbian for Robots with all the Lego code on it.
Burn Raspbian onto an SD card. You'll need Balena Etcher for that.
Enable SSH. This will let you connect to it once it's in the Pi. Go to desertbot.io and they'll tell you how and why you need this.
Prepare for WiFi. You need a text file with your WiFi ssid and password in there so you can access it through your network. Again, go to desertbot for instructions.
Pop the SD Card into the BrickPi, and power up the BrickPi.
Now... there are a few more steps and bits of software that they recommend: Bonjour and Putty. Both of these are used for accessing the Pi over WiFi. I installed them, I opened them, but I can't remember if I actually used them for anything useful or not. Sorry if this is hazy.
What definitely/eventually did work was...
Step 4: Connect the BrickPi to the Laptop with an Ethernet Cable
Step 5: Go to http://dex.local
This gives you a screen offering Terminal (yecch) or VNC Virtual Desktop. If you hate Terminal like I do, I recommend the VNC.
Bingo bango bongo, the call is coming from inside the house.
The BrickPi comes with a bunch of pre-installed goodies. Just to make sure it was all going according to plan, we tested out something that spun the wheels when you pressed the pressure sensor...
...And it worked!
I was so happy, I made a DanceBot.
That's enough hard work for today. Happy new year!
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