Book Image

Hands-On Robotics with JavaScript

By : Kassandra Perch
Book Image

Hands-On Robotics with JavaScript

By: Kassandra Perch

Overview of this book

JavaScript has an effective set of frameworks and libraries that provide support for embedded device programming and the robotics ecosystem. You’ll be able to put your JavaScript knowledge to work with this practical robotics guide. The book starts by guiding you in setting up an environment to program robots with JavaScript and Rasberry Pi 3. You will build beginner-level projects, such as a line-following robot, and then upgrade your robotics skills with a series of projects that help you get to grips with the Johnny-Five library. As you progress, you’ll learn how you can improve your projects by enabling advanced hardware components and programming concepts. You’ll even build an advanced AI-enabled robot, connect its NodeBots to the internet, create a NodeBots Swarm, and explore Message Queuing Telemetry Transport (MQTT). By the end of this book, you will have enhanced your robot programming skills by building a range of simple to complex projects.
Table of Contents (19 chapters)
Title Page
Dedication
Packt Upsell
Contributors
Preface
Index

Technical requirements


You'll need the Raspberry Pi that you set up in Chapter 1, Setting Up Your Development Environment, a breadboard, and a Pi Cobbler for easier pin access. You can get a Pi Cobbler (also sometimes called a Pi Wedge) from Adafruit, SparkFun, or Amazon. A Pi Cobbler also comes in the kits recommended in Chapter 1Setting Up Your Development Environment.

 

The following diagram shows two different Raspberry Pi Cobblers, both from Adafruit. The one on the right has the ribbon cable attached:

We'll talk about how to set up the cobbler later in this chapter. You'll also need an LED, some jumper or breadboard wires, and a 330-ohm resistor.

Note

In case you're asking yourself what's a resistor, and what does it do?, the short explanation is that a resistor will prevent the 5V electricity from the pin from burning out your LED, which needs closer...