Blog

Feb
17
2016

Gobot - This One Goes To 0.11

Forgive us, dear friends, that it has been a couple of months since our last update, but we wanted to release our newest version as part of the Golang 1.6 release party.

So, without further ado, say hello to version 0.11 of Gobot, our open source robotics and Internet of Things (IoT) framework written in the Go programming language.

Welcome, C.H.I.P.

Once of the most exciting parts of the new 0.11 release, is adding support for C.H.I.P the $9 computer. Yes, you read that correctly. Thanks to awesome contributor Hrishikesh Tapaswi, we now have support for one of the most exciting pieces of hardware we've seen for a while. Check it out in action:

The code is as you would expect, just classic Gobot:

package main

import (
        "time"

        "github.com/hybridgroup/gobot"
        "github.com/hybridgroup/gobot/platforms/i2c"
        "github.com/hybridgroup/gobot/platforms/chip"
)

func main() {
        gbot := gobot.NewGobot()

        board := chip.NewChipAdaptor("chip")
        screen := i2c.NewGroveLcdDriver(board, "screen")

        work := func() {
                screen.Write("hello")

                screen.SetRGB(255, 0, 0)

                gobot.After(5*time.Second, func() {
                        screen.Clear()
                        screen.Home()
                        screen.SetRGB(0, 255, 0)
                        // set a custom character in the first position
                        screen.SetCustomChar(0, i2c.CustomLCDChars["smiley"])
                        // add the custom character at the end of the string
                        screen.Write("goodbye\nhave a nice day " + string(byte(0)))
                        gobot.Every(500*time.Millisecond, func() {
                                screen.Scroll(false)
                        })
                })

                screen.Home()
                <-time.After(1 * time.Second)
                screen.SetRGB(0, 0, 255)
        }

        robot := gobot.NewRobot("screenBot",
                []gobot.Connection{board},
                []gobot.Device{screen},
                work,
        )

        gbot.AddRobot(robot)

        gbot.Start()
}

Imagine what kinds of new applications and devices you will be able to create using Gobot on C.H.I.P. Imagine, and now create them!

Changelog

You can find the changelog here, but if you want to see every detail, as always you can take a look at the compare view on GitHub.

  • Support for Golang 1.6
  • Determine I2C adaptor capabilities dynamically to avoid use of block I/O when unavailable
  • chip
    • Add support for GPIO & I2C interfaces on C.H.I.P. $9 computer
  • leap motion
    • Add support additional "hand" and "gesture" events
  • mqtt
    • Support latest update to Eclipse Paho MQTT client library
  • raspberry pi
    • Proper release of Pi Blaster for PWM pins
  • bebop
    • Prevent event race conditions on takeoff/landing
  • i2c
    • Support added for new i2c device:
      • MCP23017 Port Expander
    • Bugfixes:
      • Correct init and data parsing for MPU-6050
      • Correct handling of errors and buffering for Wiichuk
  • gort
    • Update bluetooth commands for more logical order
    • Update arduino to support many more board types
  • docs
    • Many corrections and updates for docs, primarily contributed by the awesome community.

Need To Report Issues?

When you find any issues with Gobot, please let us know by entering a GitHub issue and we'll take a look as soon as possible. We're also frequently around on IRC (#gobotio on freenode).

Keep Up To Date

To keep up with the project, please follow us on Twitter at @gobotio, as our team and many contributors work together to make Gobot the best it can be.