Source Install

To get the latest version of our software, you can install it from source. We’re doing our best to keep the indigo-devel branch stable.

Workspaces

We created a one liner script that installs everything for you: - ros and dependencies - creates the proper workspaces hierarchy (we are pulling a few dependencies from source) - compiles everything

You simply need to run (replace -w ~{{ros_user}}/projects/shadow_robot/base with the path you want to install the sources in, make sure you keep the ~{{ros_user}} if you want the project in your home folder or that you point to a directory with write permission for your user):

curl -L bit.ly/dev-machine | bash -s -- -w ~{{ros_user}}/projects/shadow_robot/base

The output is quite verbose:

  % Total    % Received % Xferd  Average Speed   Time    Time     Time  Current
                                 Dload  Upload   Total   Spent    Left  Speed
100   177  100   177    0     0    465      0 --:--:-- --:--:-- --:--:--   465
100  4146  100  4146    0     0   6281      0 --:--:-- --:--:-- --:--:--  6281
=================================================================
|       Installing Shadow Robot development environment

[…]

-------------------
 | Running Ansible |
 -------------------

sudo password:


PLAY [ros-hydro-desktop-precise64] ********************************************
skipping: no hosts match

[…]

PLAY RECAP ********************************************************************
changed: [localhost] => {"changed": true, "cmd": "usermod -a -G dialout 'ugo' ", "delta": "0:00:00.009358", "end": "2016-01-04 08:33:52.390686", "item": "", "rc": 0, "start": "2016-01-04 08:33:52.381328", "stderr": "", "stdout": ""}
localhost                  : ok=38   changed=26   unreachable=0    failed=0


 ------------------------------------------------
 | Install complete, please restart the machine |
 ------------------------------------------------

Updating your workspace

For a quick update of the main workspace, we added an alias: simply run ws_update from the console to get the latest source code.

To fully update the different workspaces (both the shadow code and the dependencies), you can rerun the install script. WARNING: If you use the same workspace path, it’ll completely overwrite it

Installing for a real robot

If you’re installing the code for a real robot, you simply need to add an option to the line above to pull the proper sr-config branch. sr-config contains the parameters specific to your hand (calibration, controller tuning etc…).

You can check which branch is installed on the computer provided by Shadow by running (on the machine provided with your hand):

roscd sr_ethercat_hand_config
git branch

The highlighted branch is the one that is currently used. Let’s assume it’s shadowrobot_1234 for the following instructions. On the newly installed computer you will need to pull the same branch:

curl -L bit.ly/dev-machine | bash -s -- -w ~/projects/shadow_robot/base -c shadowrobot_1234

Note: the etherCAT configuration has evolved quite a bit in the latest years. If the config is not working for you, get in touch and we’ll help you migrate the configuration.