Hilfe gesucht, mit guten Englisch Kenntnissen

[markus]

Du bist von dem Projekt Begeistert.
Du würdet gerne Mithelfen und hast auch noch gute Englisch Kenntnisse.
Dann bist Du unser Mann!(oder Frau)
Das ganze Projekt wird ab jetzt zweisprachig betrieben.
Mit den Übersetzungen kommen wir, neben den anderen Sachen die zu machen sind, kaum hinterher.
Deswegen suchen wir Verstärkung. Wenn Du Interessiert bist, dann melde Dich doch bei uns.
Wir warten auf Dich

 

[browsem]

Hi Markus.
I think perhaps i can help you here.
Ill do my best, to help get som english text up, i have a reasonnable understanding of the German language too.
in my earlier job, the company was owned by the Austrian Andritz company, meaning lots of the company internal courses and classes were held in German. I just newer really got around to also be able to talk/write it to an extent where i wouldnt be embarrassed

Now a couple of questions, regarding something that perhaps is not to be placed here.
I have an oppertunity, to help develop a commercial mower bot.

I would wery much like to base it, on the work done by you and the others.
I have talked with the project owner about this, and he would like to purchase a license, and also would let me return "most" of the code developed.
Basicly the plan would be, to make it possible for youre granny to set up some of the more advanced funtions.
The upside for this site, would be an affordable, hackable robot, and of course a mention in on the site/ in the manual on what the code is based on

Br Bjarke Fjeldsted

 

[nero76]

Hello Bjarke,

I'm one of the Ardumower members (software engineer).

Thanks for your interest in our project. We would like to welcome you to translate the German pages. This way the project gets its way into the 'world'. If you like, simply edit the German pages in the English section (or just reply the English translation to the pages - we can give you author rights if required).

We started this project because there is no project available for a programmable commercial mower (no hackable bot). We like the idea that you would like to develop such a hackable robot.

Question: Could you imagine to base your code on the GPL license? Which basically means, you can use it for a small fee, but you have to base it on GPL too.

If you cannot imagine this at all, we can think about a proprietary license, however it looks to be counterproductive with our aim (making an open mower bot).

In both cases any income would be donated to this project again.

Please let us know your thoughts.

Regards,

Alexander

 

[browsem]

hi Alexander
Thx for the reply.
Yes im wery much for the gpl model, having used Linux for years
Basicly where we wanne be, is in the business og selling hardware to mister jones next door.
Now we want to place this robot at the bottom of the scale, price vice, to get some hardware roling
That means we cannot play too much with the hardware side.
I think what we can do, is create a standard robot, that has some pinouts, and is based on the Ardumower software.
Basicly i want to make spi, i2c and serial accesible, perhaps, if i can get the money to agree with me, even make it compatible with the std. arduino shields
Integrating servo controllers, and tilt sensor, + the line follow inputs in this board.
I guess, it would be some thing like the "custom" board, you hint at, at the home page
Basic mower robot hardware then.

Now once jones has bought this, i would like to have some upgrades to sell him.
This would be something like, reversing the direction the robot will go around the wire.
Adding a bluetooth module, for comm, with phone apps, or perhaps even adding a wireless web server, to tell the user the status of the robot
Adding an ultrasonic sensor and the controls for this.
The hardware interface code here, i think would be gpl'led.

Now WHAT i use this hardware for, is that i would like to keep for my self/ the company.
That would mean, that the user gets a working, upgradable mower, and,
that the geek would be able to get the Ardumower software, there by resetting, to the basic model, still have acces to the hardware, and then could implement any wishes from there/ other arduino modules and so on

Could that be a working model.


Btw, just for info.
My way into this, is i got myself a zipoman mower (its a supoman, with a daughter board with an extra tiltsensor). Now i had some wishes, and so on, and somehow i got to be the one, to program the nex generation.
Now my test mules, will proberbly be based on the next supoman model (rotenbach in germany, Grassbot in denmark), and to get something going fast, we will modify them like the Tianchen TC-G158 you descripe. Simply adding the arduino, instead of the cpu, and harwesting the wire signals, before the multiplexer, to be able to control the robots direction, and other charactaristics
Btw. The TC-G158 and the supoman motherboards are almost the same, as i see it, the biggest difference is the choice of cpu form
br Bjarke

 

[nero76]

Hello Bjarke,

Your idea sounds very good - I think the key point (on the hardware side) is that you have some 'open' pins on the robot that you can use to detach the original CPU and attach your Arduino to it (and use the Ardumower software). Obviously, the geek will have to do this on his own risk (no warranty, no guarantee). This approach might always work as long as signal levels are the same.
Alternatively (if you want to keep your hardware more close), all sensors, motors, bumpers etc. are made available via I2C or some easy serial protocol, so that the Arduino simply communicates to your robot via 3 wires (SCL, SDA, GND or TX, RX, GND). This is similar as in the Roomba cleaning robot serial protocol which can be used by an Arduino. The Ardumower software is highly customizable via a robot configuration file, so this approach might work too.

For the normal user, would you like to use Ardumower code fragments for it too (then maybe, GPL might be too restrictive for you)? The license model is not set in stone yet (maybe Apache 2 license will fit better for you). The difference is that with Apache license, you do not need to use GPL too for your own code.

Regards,
Alexander

 

[browsem]

Hmm i havent really worked much in licenses so ill take your word for it.
What i DONT wanna do, is step over som toes in here
I like the bus model.. in priciple, but i think ill go with ios directly into the controller.
My idea was to create the production article around an arduino mega, and place the robot things around it on an extended board.

That way, you have the same acces to the ios, and if you dont want the onboard atmega, we will make a jumper to turn it off.

 

[nero76]

Hello Bjarke,

We have not heard yet back from you, how is your project going? Are there concrete plans if parts of your commercial project will be open source too? Do you have maybe photos of prototypes already?

We are looking forward to your answer.

Regards,
Alexander