You’ve doubtlessly seen the current crop of robot dogs and, if you are like us, thought about getting one to play with. The problem is that the cheap ones are toys, and the serious ones cost serious money. But now you can experiment with a mid-range cost one for free in your browser. The sponsor will be happy to sell you a robot in kit or assembled form, although it is the OpenCat robot (we’ve covered it before), so you could simply build a real one yourself if you wanted to.

The code is all in a Web-based IDE, and the main file is deceptively simple. However, the real work is in read_serial (in the src/moduleManager.h file, for some reason) and reaction in the aptly-named src/reaction.h file. If you just want to play, you can use the buttons in the simulator or enter serial commands (documented elsewhere). For example, ksit will make the dog sit down.

You can change as much code as you like. You might consider starting simple and just sending commands programmatically, but you can dive as deep as you like. Press compile up at the top right, and it will load and run your code in the virtual robot. If you run it off the desk (of course, we did), you can reset and try again.

Here’s a quick example to get you started:

//***********************
#define BITTLE // Petoi 9 DOF robot dog: 1 on head + 8 on leg

#define BiBoard_V1_0
//***********************

#include "src/OpenCat.h"

void setup() {
Serial.begin(115200); // USB serial
Serial.setTimeout(SERIAL_TIMEOUT);

while (Serial.available() && Serial.read())
; // empty buffer

Serial.println("Hello Hackaday!");
initRobot();
}

unsigned int loopct=0;
unsigned int phase=0;

#define cmdtokenEOF 0xFFFF

// commands (token + argument)
char *cmd[] =
{
"sit", // good boy
"up", // stand up
"bf", // back flip
"ff", // forward flip
"EOF" // string doesn't matter here
};

unsigned int cmdtoken[] = {
T_SKILL,
T_SKILL,
T_SKILL,
T_SKILL,
cmdtokenEOF
};

#define LOOPDELAY 1000 // number of loops between actions

void loop() {
// This code runs repeatedly
// Put any change here if you want to change behaviors
if (loopct % 1000 == 0 )
{
loopct=0;
if (cmdtoken[phase]==cmdtokenEOF) phase=0;
strcpy(newCmd,cmd[phase]);
token=cmdtoken[phase++];
newCmdIdx=1;
}
loopct++;

reaction();
}

The robot is better than the cheap toys, but it still lacks many sensors. You can add on a few simple sensors that appear to mount in the dog’s mouth, or you can replace its head with an arm if you opt for beefy enough servos.

Of course, we’ve seen plenty of robot dogs. We want one, but we don’t know what we’d do with it. Any ideas?