25 dollar arm powered robot

[z.s.tar.gz]

Check it out before they're all gone!
http://hackaday.com/2010/10/04/125-off-the-evalbot-is-a-steal/

[madsci1016]

"
What you’ll get is a Stellaris ARM Cortex-M3 microcontroller on a board with a bunch of goodies.

MicroSD slot
USB host and device connectors
I2C audio with speakers
Ethernet connector
96×6 OLED display
Motors
Optosensors
Bump detectors
"

Been fighting with their store for 20 minutes now, all i get is:

Your activity has been detected as a Bot or Spider by our system. If you believe you are seeing this message in error you can Retry the checkout after one minute.

Finally got my order in. Had to go through customs form twice, and past the bot detected warning once.

[z.s.tar.gz]

Yeah I had a hard time ordering as well. I somehow got it placed without actually signing up somehow but in the end I did manage to get an email saying my order was accepted. However I didn't get a page from TI saying this so I guess the lesson is to keep an eye on your email while you're trying to order.

[Metal Slug 2]

Yey, finally after an hour and a half of struggling with the site I was able to place my order, free shipping too.  This is a sweet deal on this little bot =).

[madsci1016]

LOL, it was all a big screw-up.

"As some posts already note, the coupon code is only available to ESC Boston attendees. That said, we’re psyched about all of your interest and understand there seems to have been some confusion, so TI plans to fulfill all of the finalized orders to date. We’re working on some logistics in getting the code up and running again for ESC Boston attendees, but proof of ESC registration will be required. Stay tuned.

We hear you about the e-store and are working as quickly as possible to avoid issues in the future. Thanks for your patience.

Bottom line – we’re glad to see the excitement around EVALBOT and look forward to checking out your projects! We encourage you to share them on our e2e Forums at http://e2e.ti.com/

-Jean Anne Booth, Texas Instruments

——-"

[z.s.tar.gz]

Thank you hackaday!

[TrickyNekro]

LOL, it was all a big screw-up.

TI screw up? Hmm... why not a very well planned marketing trick...

[Metal Slug 2]

LOL, it was all a big screw-up.

"As some posts already note, the coupon code is only available to ESC Boston attendees. That said, we’re psyched about all of your interest and understand there seems to have been some confusion, so TI plans to fulfill all of the finalized orders to date. "

So this Does mean that I am still getting my order eh? not bad =D.  Although I really wonder how long it will take TI to ship it...my order number was 6031  .
On another note, weather a TI screwup or a clever marketing trick, at least TI now knows there is a healthy population of robotics enthusiasts out there...

[Razor Concepts]

LOL, it was all a big screw-up.

"As some posts already note, the coupon code is only available to ESC Boston attendees. That said, we’re psyched about all of your interest and understand there seems to have been some confusion, so TI plans to fulfill all of the finalized orders to date. "

So this Does mean that I am still getting my order eh? not bad =D.  Although I really wonder how long it will take TI to ship it...my order number was 6031  .
On another note, weather a TI screwup or a clever marketing trick, at least TI now knows there is a healthy population of robotics enthusiasts out there...

Or people who just think its a good deal and buy one and never use it besides the demo program 

[Metal Slug 2]

Or people who just think its a good deal and buy one and never use it besides the demo program 

Ya, that too.  I guess TI will just have to see how many original and new projects pop up from the sale of the evalbots.

[madsci1016]

Got mine today! Woo hoo!

[madsci1016]

Just finished building. The wheels are HARD to put together and get right. The wheels really don’t stick out past the batteries that far. It gets caught up on the gout lines between tiles in my kitchen.

Would be nice if they added cliff sensors and/or line following sensor to the board. Would make for a nice desk toy as I figure out how to program this thing.

Speaking of which, can anyone point me in the right direction to start learning how to program for an Arm processor like this one?

[z.s.tar.gz]

mine should be here by now then.
as far as arm programming goes there's the gcc fork but I don't know much about it. I'm also sure ti has their own tools but as usual I'm sure they're only for windows.

[madsci1016]

but as usual I'm sure they're only for windows.

Not a problem for me. 

I might look into the Ti stuff it's if it is free; it would be nice to try something non gcc.

[z.s.tar.gz]

http://focus.ti.com/dsp/docs/dspsupportatn.tsp?familyId=44&sectionId=3&tabId=415&toolTypeId=30
It's windows only although I don't think I'd use it regardless of what it ran on. Look at all that clutter!

[madsci1016]

The screenshot? That's not much worse then AVR Studio in debug. And it looks like it is is debug mode with code, compiled instructions, registers and a memory map all open in separate windows.

[z.s.tar.gz]

Still I don't see why that's something you'd want to advertise.

Use my program because it can do tons of stuff all at one time*
*if you have a 70" monitor

[madsci1016]

Still I don't see why that's something you'd want to advertise.

Because that is a pretty industry standard workspace layout for detailed debugging. There's a lot of things you have to track at one time; i'd be turned off their suite if it couldn't do it.

That's not the layout you use for actual code writing, you can switch to just a seeing the code window an maybe a few other things. Maybe that's what freaks you out.

[z.s.tar.gz]

You debug your way and I debug my way. Lots of things at once is not my way.

[madsci1016]

You debug your way and I debug my way. Lots of things at once is not my way.

Granted, but not my point. 'My way' is the 'common way', which is why TI would advertise the screenshot that's giving you grief. I'm saying this to answer your concern:

Still I don't see why that's something you'd want to advertise.

I know you are mostly a assembly person, and there's not much to track when debugging assembly. When you get into larger higher level language uC projects, there are many more things to watch as you step through. You might better understand as you get deeper into C/C++

[z.s.tar.gz]

Yeah assembly doesn't usually take too long to debug once you get it working. When I did have to debug it though I prefered to have two windows open: one showing registers and one showing the code. That's about it. It wasn't that there wasn't other stuff I could be debugging, it's just that I only wanted to know those two things.

So I guess my real issue with huge ide's isn't that they have a ton of little windows open but that not all of them are needed at once.
If there was a way to dynamically change which windows were being shown at what time then that would be nice.

[chelmi]

If there was a way to dynamically change which windows were being shown at what time then that would be nice.

I've never seen an IDE were views were not configurable...

[TrickyNekro]

Speaking of ARM... the NXP has some pretty nice environment, eclipse based and free....

A big thanks to Razor back then for the suggestion....

mine should be here by now then.
as far as arm programming goes there's the gcc fork but I don't know much about it. I'm also sure ti has their own tools but as usual I'm sure they're only for windows.

Isn't that why emulators exist... I'm not a linux guy... But having some time in the park with linux in the past... tells me that's difficult but not impossible.... And don't tell me that wine is illegal... I'll start crying... Or is it the pride of the Linux.... :-p

The screenshot? That's not much worse then AVR Studio in debug. And it looks like it is is debug mode with code, compiled instructions, registers and a memory map all open in separate windows.

Common!!! Debug is nice... All the rest isn't nice... I'm starting to believe they are using some of the worst editors out there.... No underlining, no corrections, no many useful things.... And I still believe I'm an AVR guy after all....

[z.s.tar.gz]

I mean like a hotkey that will switch between 'modes' kinda like alt-tab does for windows.

And wine is illegal! Not really but I wouldn't say it's the pride of the linux world either. (unless you hang out on ubuntu forums in which case wine is the best and you are so leet for 'unlocking' root)

[TrickyNekro]

I mean like a hotkey that will switch between 'modes' kinda like alt-tab does for windows.

And wine is illegal! Not really but I wouldn't say it's the pride of the linux world either. (unless you hang out on ubuntu forums in which case wine is the best and you are so leet for 'unlocking' root)

Do they even have root... never checked really.... I'm using fedora.... :-p
I though they had something else for main directory... Again I'm the linux guy.... Not that I love microsoft....
I still fight my way with XP.... :-p but things start to get lonely without the D11 support...

Anyways... Why is wine illegal... it has a part of microsuck kernel but... I though that you pay all those dollars for the CD key - serial.... not the kernel.... Even themselves say that you can have back up CDs/ DVDs....

Apart from that... You can use any CD/DVD for your installation provided you have a matching serial....
For example if my friend has win XP greek... then I can get his CD provided I have my own serial for win XP greek....
They even cut the budget on laptops for not providing DVDs....

If they let these things loose then they are loose... not free... but still loose....


From what I heard the problem with wine is the same problem youtubers have with music on their videos....
Though using music on their videos isn't going to get them sued, youtube is really the one calling the shots on who uploads the video and when to "close shop" to other uploads....

[z.s.tar.gz]

Wine isn't in any way illegal, I was just joking.
And as far as root goes ubuntu disables it by default in favor of using sudo which is every so slightly more secure but mainly keeps new users from screwing things up too bad. Some people however see the root account as a cheat code or unlockable easter egg or something stupid like that and decide it's their jobs to unravel all the ubuntu team's work.

[chelmi]

Anyways... Why is wine illegal... it has a part of microsuck kernel but...

I really doubt that. It's a re-implementation of the Windows system API. Nothing illegal here. Do you really think MS would do something about it if they knew that Wine took some code from their kernel?

[TrickyNekro]

Anyways... Why is wine illegal... it has a part of microsuck kernel but...

I really doubt that. It's a re-implementation of the Windows system API. Nothing illegal here. Do you really think MS would do something about it if they knew that Wine took some code from their kernel?

Hey don't shoot me.... I said what I heard, and I remember mentioning that what I said is what I heard....

Basically... thinkings with coding are a little vogue... A code that does the same think with the same effectiveness is petty much the same in any implementation.... It's illegal for microsoft to try sue the guys who did wine... (there is a term for that but my English.... :-/ )

There are windows emulators for linux that are indeed illegal.... But how much illegal can they be if you already own a windows copy.... Then again... from what I remember microsoft is selling the serial key for the most part of the price at least)

Wine isn't in any way illegal, I was just joking.

Sorry I didn't notice so well :-p

[z.s.tar.gz]

Anyways running an IDE in wine is not an option for me because I'd rather just run a vm.