FRCsim help

Technical Programming
1

Our team is looking into switching to Java since our season is over and most of our programmers are familiar with the language. I have done a fresh install of Ubuntu, but when I tried to use the one line terminal install it fails with the error: E: Package ‘libgazebo6-dev’ has no installation candidate
E: Package ‘gazebo6’ has no installation candidate

Eventually I gave up trying to get the script to work and did the manual install. Everything seemed to be fine, but now Gazebo is not able to find some of the packages such as sensors and motors. Is there anywhere I can find those missing libraries or possibly fix the install script to make it easier to install on other computers?

2

Maybe you need to enable more ubuntu repositories to install gazebo?

sudo add-apt-repository main
sudo add-apt-repository universe
sudo add-apt-repository restricted
sudo add-apt-repository multiverse
3

I’ve tried installing Gazebo 6 on modern Ubuntu, and it’s pretty much impossible. It’s a deprecated package that requires like 10 other deprecated packages that you have to dig through obscure sites to try to find. I worked for ~5 hours and for nowhere. I’d love it if I’m wrong and someone can give some instructions, but I wouldn’t bother until then. If you really want this capability, then it might be easier and better to just modify FRCsim to use the latest version of Gazebo. If you do, post it here, I think everyone could appreciate that!

4

Modifying FRCsim to work with the latest version of gazebo would be ideal. If you’re going to go that route however, you may want to try to coordinate with the WPILib team (via github) as there will be (most likely) a lot of simulation related changes this summer.

5

They were already enabled on my machine, but thank you.

I will do some more poking around with our teams mentors and students to see if we can find a solution or figure out some modification for Gazebo. We appreciate all the quick responses.

6

I have long been intrigued by the thought of using the simulator, but it looks like far too much work for the return on investment. Issues as I see it:

  1. Must dedicate a machine to it (unless you just happen to run Ubuntu)
  2. Can’t use a laptop (Intel integrated graphics not recommended)
  3. Old versions of software required (Ubuntu 14, Gazebo 6, etc.)
  4. Must be able to model your robot in a way suitable for the simulation software. This includes keeping up with any changes as they happen.
7

While I agree with you on some of that, I was planning to use the sim to teach Java over the offseason when we couldn’t meet or don’t have access to the robot.

  1. Setting up a dual boot system to run Linux is relatively easy if your disk is large enough to support 2 operating systems.
  2. Laptops are normally less powerful than a desktop, but you can find laptops with discrete graphics cards capable of running the sim.
  3. No argument there. It would be nice to see this developed for modern systems and software.
  4. Again, I can’t argue for build season, but it should be a good exercise for offseason programming and *CAD training.

*I’m making an assumption that most of the SolidWorks modeling is the same.