Embedded Computing and Go

Christopher AgocsSouth Side Hackerspace: Chicago and Backstop Solutions GroupChicaGoLang, April 13 2015

What is embedded computing?

Loose definition <

Internet of Things

or:putting Computers on Stuff

Stuff with Computers:

Adding Sensors Plants Wine Bottles Mail Boxes

Adding Displays Digital Signage Clock that chimes when your bus is due

Adding Capability Robots, etc.

Why?

Why bother? Display information Expand capabilities Fun of it

Why Go? Dependency hell Awesome standard library Fun of it

Options

Arduino Raspberry Pi Beaglebone Black

Arduinos

Pros Tons of ‘em Dirt cheap Wildly good support

Cons Tons of ‘em Dirt cheap Storage

Arduinos

Varieties Uno Due Micro/Nano

Arduinos

Arduino: 32 KB

Go HelloWorld: 609KB

Arduinos

Why did I waste all that time talking about Arduinos?

Gobot.io

Demo

192.168.2.118:9000

How it works

Computer

Arduino

Serial protocol “Fermata”

Some possibilities

Load level LEDs Server room temp monitor

Raspberry Pi

Good at displays Fewer GPIO pins Digital Signage HTPCs

Raspberry Pi styles

Raspberry Pi A B B+

Model 1 1 Core ARM V61 USB256 MB RAM

1 Core ARM V6512 MB RAM2 USB + Ethernet

1 Core ARM V61 GB RAM4 USB + Ethernet

Model 2 4 Core ARM V74 USB + Ethernet

Raspberry Pi’s Most Annoying Feature

Beaglebone Black

1 USB port More GPIO 1 GHz ARM processor 512 MB RAM 4 GB onboard storage!

Beaglebone Black

Better for developers Cloud9 Node

Beaglebone’s Most Annoying Feature

Angström Linux

Go powered telescope

Overview

Telescope Server

Stepper motor driver

Stepper motor driver

Pan

Tilt

WebcamControls

Image

HTTP GET and POST

PWM

USB

Bigger Picture

TelescopeAgocs.orgUser

VPNProto-CDN

Where am I now

Done Motor control▪ Left▪ Right▪ Down

Serving control page

Where am I now

Needs doing Motor control – Up Make motors faster Serve it on the ‘net

Where am I now

Needs figuring out Exposure control on web cam Capture web cam image Serve it▪ Mini-CDN?

In conclusion

Robots are cool Go is for more than just servers Hack on robots at the South Side

Hackerspace sshchicago.org