Python Robotics is a project designed to create an easy-to-use interface for accessing and controlling a wide variety of real and simulated robots.

History

Pyrobot was funded from 2003 to 2005 by the National Science Foundation

National Science Foundation

The National Science Foundation is a United States government agency that supports fundamental research and education in all the non-medical fields of science and engineering. Its medical counterpart is the National Institutes of Health...

 as NSF DUE CCLI-EMD Award number 0231363, "Beyond LEGOs: Hardware, Software, and Curriculum for the Next Generation Robot Laboratory". The principal investigators on the NSF grant were Douglas Blank of Bryn Mawr College

Bryn Mawr College

Bryn Mawr College is a women's liberal arts college located in Bryn Mawr, a community in Lower Merion Township, Pennsylvania, ten miles west of Philadelphia. The name "Bryn Mawr" means "big hill" in Welsh....

, Kurt Konolige of SRI International

SRI International

SRI International , founded as Stanford Research Institute, is one of the world's largest contract research institutes. Based in Menlo Park, California, the trustees of Stanford University established it in 1946 as a center of innovation to support economic development in the region. It was later...

, Deepak Kumar (computer scientist) of Bryn Mawr College

Bryn Mawr College

Bryn Mawr College is a women's liberal arts college located in Bryn Mawr, a community in Lower Merion Township, Pennsylvania, ten miles west of Philadelphia. The name "Bryn Mawr" means "big hill" in Welsh....

, Lisa Meeden of Swarthmore College

Swarthmore College

Swarthmore College is a private, independent, liberal arts college in the United States with an enrollment of about 1,500 students. The college is located in the borough of Swarthmore, Pennsylvania, 11 miles southwest of Philadelphia....

, and Holly Yanco of University of Massachusetts Lowell

University of Massachusetts Lowell

The University of Massachusetts Lowell is a public university in Lowell, Massachusetts, and part of the University of Massachusetts system...

.

PyroBot is a Python

Python (programming language)

Python is a general-purpose, high-level programming language whose design philosophy emphasizes code readability. Python claims to "[combine] remarkable power with very clear syntax", and its standard library is large and comprehensive...

 library with some C++ code for processing camera images. It has connections to Player, Stage, and Gazebo. It also contains its own simulator written completely in Python. It can directly control a variety of real robots, including the Pioneer, Khepera

Khepera mobile robot

The Khepera is a small differential wheeled mobile robot that was developed at the LAMI laboratory of Prof. Jean-Daniel Nicoud at EPFL in the mid '90s. It was developed by Edo...

, AIBO

AIBO

AIBO was one of several types of robotic pets designed and manufactured by Sony...

, and Hemisson.

The ideas from PyroBot continue to evolve as Myro, short for My Robot, in the Institute for Personal Robots in Education

Institute for Personal Robots in Education

Institute for Personal Robots in Education was initiated by a $1 million grant from Microsoft Research to Bryn Mawr College and the Georgia Institute of Technology and announced in July 2006. IPRE is designing introductory computer science curricula centered around a Personal Robot...

software, although it is no longer for Python only. Myro can be used by many other computer languages as well.

External links

• Beyond LEGOs - NSF funding page for Pyrobot