The Marinators 5760 are a ‘new’ returning team. Actually their first attempt in 2015 ended in failure, since they didn’t field a robot. So The few students on the team have little experience, and in code development only a little Python. Our local sponsoring teams are providing lots of support, but for various reasons we are going to use Python as the code development platform, and following the Kitbot docs to implement them. I have resurrected an Toshiba Satellite (bought a new battery) and have logged my history in getting it configured.
This is my progress so far. Ubuntu 24 Desktop installed on laptop.
hints: ‘ctrl-alt-t’ brings up terminal
up arrow recalls last commands
auto complete of CLIls
ex. ls Dow will complete to ls Downloads
history → brings up last 100 commands
ls → list current directory
cd → change to directory
mkdir
rm → delete
User marcode Password xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
1 sudo apt update
2 sudo apt upgrade
Install and enable Chrome (I just prefer to FireFox)
3 wget https://dl.google.com/linux/direct/google-chrome-stable_current_amd64.deb
4 sudo dpkg -i google-chrome-stable_current_amd64.deb
5 google-chrome
6 history
7 google-chrome
(pin Chrome, unpin FireFox)
Install useful utilities
9 sudo apt install net-tools (ifconfig is useful for troubleshooting networks)
11 sudo apt install locate (enhanced find command)
Go to Wpi and install VScode tarball
14 tar -xf WPILib_Linux-2025.2.1.tar.gz
15 ls
16 cd WPILib_Linux-2025.2.1/
17 ls
18 ./WPILibInstaller
19 cd
20 sudo cp ~/wpilib/2025/frccode/AppArmor/* /etc/apparmor.d/
29 sudo systemctl reload apparmor.service
Install pip
35 sudo apt install python3-pip
36 pip3 --version
Install virtual environment for robot.py
41 sudo apt install python3.12-venv
42 python3 -m venv develop
44 source develop/bin/activate
45 python3 -m pip install robotpy
46 ls
47 mkdir Mac
48 cd Mac
49 python3 -m robotpy init
50 ls
51 ls -l
At this point, a blank python program is in directory Mac and read for
code creation. This is a python program that gets loaded to the RoboRio.
B
(At this point I had to stop for a day or two to get a new battery for this old Toshiba, which came at 4pm the 22nd, about an hour after I picked up a donated driver station PC from team 7777 <bound to be lucky! Thanks!> It is a XPS 9310 with two USB-c ports, so I will need a Ethernet dongle or dock.)
OK, get more code for robot py
git clone GitHub - robotpy/mostrobotpy: Official Repository of python implementation of WPILib components
OOPS no git, probably need to install build-essential, probably OpenCV, etc.
sudo apt install git
Get XRP examples (we do have an XRP, not sure if will use to teach this season)
git clone GitHub - lobrien/xrp_wpilib_examples
Get kibot python code and docs:
Down load and unzip into KitBotPythonCode
:~/KitBotPythonCode$ ls
‘Inline Commands’ KitBot_Python_Software_Guide.pdf ‘Traditional Commands’
OK good stopping point. Next, actually getting a a full robot.py for the default kitbot built in vscode. I guess I will read the KitBot_Python_Software_Guide.pdf.