Connecting multiple Bluetooth devices for scouting

[Dale]

RoboScout,
Interesting that you connect one tablet at a time. Is that an automated process back on the laptop or is that manual?

It sounds like your front-end is a spreadsheet that your save periodically and retrieve to the central laptop. Do I have that right?

[RoboScout]

No, sorry to confuse you, the front end is an Android application.

In order to minimize the new development year over year, and to allow the students without a software background to build the application, we wrote a code generator to build the Android application. The code generator takes a spreadsheet file as input, and generates the Java application source files from which the application is built. The code generator supports radio buttons, checkboxes, text fields, a custom scoring matrix for the UI.

Why I mentioned the spreadsheet in my post was that you indicated that your team doesn't have much experience with Android development. Perhaps, we could spin a version of the app for you.

And, yes, there is a 'sync' button on the UI that allows a scouter to sync the collected files on demand. We chose that model early on so that we could make sure that each transfer completed successfully. Now, that we have two seasons under our belt with the application, we may shift over to an auto-sync, but simple and reliable is good, too.

[notmattlythgoe]

Originally Posted by RoboScout

No, sorry to confuse you, the front end is an Android application.

In order to minimize the new development year over year, and to allow the students without a software background to build the application, we wrote a code generator to build the Android application. The code generator takes a spreadsheet file as input, and generates the Java application source files from which the application is built. The code generator supports radio buttons, checkboxes, text fields, a custom scoring matrix for the UI.

Why I mentioned the spreadsheet in my post was that you indicated that your team doesn't have much experience with Android development. Perhaps, we could spin a version of the app for you.

And, yes, there is a 'sync' button on the UI that allows a scouter to sync the collected files on demand. We chose that model early on so that we could make sure that each transfer completed successfully. Now, that we have two seasons under our belt with the application, we may shift over to an auto-sync, but simple and reliable is good, too.

I had this same idea for generating the Android UI but we have not had a chance to implement it yet. Now with Tableau as a data analysis source the android app is the only part of our software chain that needs rewritten each year. I'd love to get it to the point that the most we'd have to do is add an implementation for a new type of UI widget if the needs arises.

[Dale]

RoboScout,
Pretty fancy stuff!

I see the development of the scouting application as another important project for the the team to develop, just like building the robot. It's a project full of constraints, pitfalls and opportunities. If we get in a bind, though, we might take you up on your generous offer.

notmattlythgoe,
Thanks for your offer as well. We'll see how far we get on the Ethernet and Bluetooth. If neither pan out, given our skill set, your software might be very handy.

[hardcopi]

Acutally I guess we are using 4 scouts. Just two tablets though. Two data collectors and two spotters who will be an extra set of eyes.

I agree though to our team data is every bit of important (well almost) as the robot itself. A great robot can have a few bad match ups depending on your partners. The data can be used to help show what your bot can really do.

I am thinking right now of doing it almost like we did last year just for simplicity sake.

I am curious though what stats everyone is taking. That is kinda the basics of our meeting on Saturday. Getting the data is pretty straight forward, but getting the right data isn't so easy.

I know our data last year by St. Louis was good enough to be able to predict the last day of Archimedes within 2-5 points for each bot. The only ones we missed were due to mechanical malfunctions.

[RoboScout]

Originally Posted by Dale

RoboScout,
Pretty fancy stuff!

I see the development of the scouting application as another important project for the the team to develop, just like building the robot. It's a project full of constraints, pitfalls and opportunities. If we get in a bind, though, we might take you up on your generous offer.

notmattlythgoe,
Thanks for your offer as well. We'll see how far we get on the Ethernet and Bluetooth. If neither pan out, given our skill set, your software might be very handy.

Absolutely agree with your approach. BTW, we're novices with the Android SDK, too. We used several of the example apps from the SDK as a basis for our implementations. And, this guy's site is always helpful: http://www.vogella.com/tutorials/

Good luck and feel free to check out our GitHub repo for a reference. Send along any questions.

[Dale]

Our latest path to explore is using PhoneGap to make a Javascript application into a native Android application. There are APIs that allow PhoneGap applications to create and manipulate files on the Android device. We'd then use USB (or maybe Bluetooth) to get those files onto a central computer (probably a Raspberry Pi) similar to what notmattlythgoe is doing. Any advice on pitfalls to this approach would be appreciated.