Getting Started with Naos

Helpful Hints

• To open Choregraphe, open a terminal and type choregraphe. This will launch Choregraphe. We re commend reading through the Choregraphe tutorial before beginning work. This tutorial can be accessed via Choregraphe by clicking on Help -> Choregraphe.


• To turn on the Nao, you are to press the button on the Nao's chest. Once the LED lights have turned on, the Nao has initiated its start up process. The LED lights in the eyes will alternate through colors until the start up process is complete. The Nao is not ready to connect until it speaks. The start up process could take longer than a minute.


• It is possible that the Nao will be unable to connect to the network. In the event that this happens, the Nao will say that it is unable to connect. At this point, we recommend turning the Nao off and then back on to attempt to connect to the network again.


• When connected with the Nao, you can enable and disable stiffness by clicking the enable stiffness button.
  
  
  
  If the button is green, stiffness is disabled. If it is red, stiffness is enabled. In order for Nao to do a movement, stiffness must be enabled.


• When testing in Choregraphe, if you are not connected to the Nao, then any sensor interaction modules (such as visual recognition, sound recognition, say, and so on) will give an error.


• When testing a movement on a Nao itself, it is recommended that you be ready to catch the Naos in the event of a fall. Even if a simulation did not indicate the Nao would fall or if you have tested the movement on another Nao, this does not guarantee that the Nao will not fall on the new movement.


• When testing a process on the Nao and in Choregraphe, simply ending the process on Choregraphe will not end the process on the Nao. So, if you are testing a module that runs infinitely (such as tracking or walk forever), it is recommended that you include a signal to stop for the Nao, such as touching one of the Nao's sensors.


• In the event that you have not included a stopping mechanism for the Nao, in order to end the process, you must shut off the motors on the Nao. This can be done through Choregraphe.


• Choregraphe occasionally crashes or freezes, so it is recommended that you save your work frequently.


• Press the button on the Nao's chest to learn the Nao's IP address, if it is connected to the network, if the motor is hot, the state of the batteries, or other information about the Nao. This only works when the Nao is already on.


• To find out detailed information about the Nao, enter the IP address into a web browser, and enter the username and password (ASK THE TA FOR THIS INFORMATION)


• If the Nao says "Motor hot", one of its motors is getting too hot. To relieve this, make the Nao move and do not let him stay in the same position for too long when the stiffness is on. To quickly release the stiffness on all joints, be prepared to the catch the Nao and press the Chest button twice -- he may fall down when you release the stiffness.


• To find out which motor on the Nao is overheating, enter the IP address into a web browser, and enter the username: nao and password: nao, as above. Click on Advanced -> Hardware to see a summary of the different hardware components and their current states. This allows you to see what the temperature of each motor is so that you can adjust your Nao accordingly in order to reduce the temperature on a particular motor.


• The sitting position (the position that the Nao ends up in when completing the pre-made Sit Down movement) seems to be a position that allows all motors to cool down. Also, you can disable the stiffness of the motors when in this position and the Nao should remain in that position.


• Some Naos will have motors that overheat more quickly than others. Jazz in particular seems to overheat quickly. When working with Jazz, make sure to leave him in a sitting position with the stiffness in his motors disabled so that the motors may cool down.


• NaoSim is not available on our machines because there is currently no NaoSim distribution for Linux. So, ignore any reference to NaoSim on the Aldebaran website.

Now, step through the following links for more Choregraphe tutorials:

• Creating a movement from scratch using Choregraphe
• Creating a movement from scratch using the Nao
• Using a speech recognition module
• Using a tracking module