Working at c4di

Getting started

The c4di is a great place to work.  I can say that with confidence because this week I've started working there. My home office is great, but there is nothing quite like "going out to work" to get things done. I've been given some space at c4di for a while to just "do interesting things" and I'm going to try and do just that.

I've made some progress with the next version of the HullPixelbot. Up until now the robots have been remote controlled, which is nice, but I really want them to be autonomous, i.e. able to look after themselves.

"That's easy" you say, "Just put a program into the robot.". Well yes, I could do that. The Arduino that I'm using is very easy to write code for. But you can only change the program by plugging the Arduino into the computer again, and I don't want to do that. Worse still, I want to be able to send the same program to many (perhaps even 100) robots at once.

So I've done what any self respecting Computer Scientist would do at this point. I've invented my own programming language, especially for HullPixelbots. It's not a very complicated language, but that's OK. It's a bit hard to understand, but that's OK too, since I'm going to write a little program that will generate robot programs and distribute them.

Today I got HullPixelbot Code working and added the ability to download programs via the serial port. I'd thought it would take a few days to get this working, but I had most of it working by lunchtime. Like I said, a cracking place to work.

I'm going to be setting up some events and whatnot over the next few weeks, but if you happen to be in the c4di please come and say hello. Just walk towards the coloured lights......

On the way out I noticed that they were preparing the tidal barrier.