Setting up Radios and Connecting to the MarcDuino

Before you can use R2 Touch, you must connect it to the MarcDuino boards in your R2. The recommended radio setup uses a WiFi S6B radio. The transmitter radio is simply the Wifi radio from the iPhone. Follow the instructions from the following links to properly configure your WiFi receiver radio and link to it from the phone:

Setting up the WiFi Radio

An alternative is to use two XBee radios, one connected to the iPhone and one at the receiver. It is extremely robust in WiFi polluted environments (think large convention), but it is much more complex:

Dual XBee Radio Setup

Main Screen

Top button row (with the yellow wedge)

The top row buttons will put R2 in pre-defined activity levels

- Off: Everything off. Closes panels, suspends panel sequences, removes them from RC control, turns sound off, turns holo lights off, stops random and RC control of holos

- Quiet: Sound off. Will turn stop panel sequences, stop sounds, and turn off holos.

- Sound On: same as above, but turns random sounds on.

- Holo On: in addition to turning the sound on, it will turn the holos light on, and put them all on random movements.

PANEL, HOLO, SOUND and LOGIC buttons (around the R2 diagram)

These buttons will switch to the respective detailed control screen.

Action Keyboard (1 and 2)

Buttons launch pre-defined sequences of sound, light and panel movements.

Slide from one keyboard to the next by swiping horizontally across the keyboard, or use the small green double arrow buttons.

This icon is only available in Wifi/TCP connection mode. It turns solid green when the phone is connected to the robot. It flashes green while trying to connect. The number of "bars" is not an indication of signal strength. It is a test of the whole system, radio connectivity plus functioning MarcDuino board. It works by sending a ping to the MarcDuino board every half second, and waiting for an acknowledgment from the board. This is why it only works in the WiFi/TCP mode, which is the only bidirectional mode. This is also why it will not turn solid green unless your MarcDuino board is not connected to the receiving radio and powered up.

Touch the wrench icon to go to the settings menu.

Opens up a split screen allowing quick access the sound settings. The left side of the sound screen with the rosace will appear. You also can slide the sound screen to access the right side with the volume and buttons. Clicking on the speaker again or on the R2 outline hides the split screen.

See further down on how to use the Sound Screen.

You can drag the sound screen to access the other half with the volume control and sound keypad:

Sound Screen

The full version of the Sound Screen is accessible via pressing the SOUND legend next to the R2 diagram in the previous main screen.

Sounds are not provided by the iPhone app. Instead the app controls the sound system embedded in your R2 unit. For this to work correctly, you need one of the sound system like the one described in the MarcDuino section. Any alternate system that responds to the same command set will also work.

Top row of button (next to the volume bar) are for volume control

Less and More turn the volume down and up.

Mid sets the volume at mid-point.

Off sets the volume to minimum.

The left Rosace (round diagram) selects the category of sounds that can be selected on the keypad, and also enables to choose a random sound from that category. To change the category, press the corresponding outer Rosace button once. To play the next sound from that category once it is already selected, press it another time. To select a specific sound by number or name, use the keypad. The sound names on the button can be modified (see Customizing R2 Touch).

The center Rosace button turns auto-sound generation on and off. When on, a random sound is chosen at random intervals from banks 1 to 5 (that is, Generic, Chatty, Happy, Sad and Whistle sounds only).

Dome Panel Screen

Use this panel control the dome panels precisely. Except for the ALL OPEN, CLOSE and OFF buttons, the actions only apply to selected panels. Which also means that if you don't select any panels, nothing happens. You can select pre-defined groups of panels using the top row buttons.

To select individual panels, touch the round numbered items, not the panels themselves.

Several buttons on the second panel of the keypad launch dome panel sequences and do not require panels to be pre-selected.

The SERVO OFF button will eliminate the servo buzz of the selected panel. When this is selected, there is no holding force in the servo, so if the pane was opened, it might start to close under its own weight.

The ALL CLOSE button will automatically turn off all the servos after the panels are closed to eliminate servo buzz.

The RC button activates RC control to the selected panel. When a panel is under RC control, it will not respond to OPEN or CLOSE button or participate in panel sequences. It will only respond to the RC input, which is an optional RC receiver channel that you connect to your MarcDuino Master RC IN input. To relinquish RC control, use the RC OFF button. RC hold will relinquish RC, but keep the panel servo at the last position it was at (hard hold). To switch to soft hold with the servo off (and no servo buzz), use the SERVO OFF button. Servos are automatically turned off when a panel is brought in the closed position via RC to eliminate buzz.

The home button (R2 silhouette at the upper left) will take you back to the main screen.

Holoprojector Screen

The Holoprojector screen behaves similarly to the Dome Panels Screen. At least one holoprojector need to be selected for the keypad buttons to do anything.

LIGHT ON and OFF are self explanatory.

HP RESET will turn the lights off, stop random movements, and take the holo off RC vertical position control if it was.

RANDOM MOVE will move the selected holo randomly in two directions. The 3 holos are completely independent and have their own random sequence.

RC MOVE will place the selected holo under RC vertical control. Like in the panel RC, the RC control comes from an optional RC receiver channel, but this time connected to the RC IN on your MarcDuino SLAVE board. The holo will center horizontally, and the RC only controls the up/down movement.

STILL will stop random movement, or RC control, and will turn the holo servos off to remove buzz.

The MAGIC buttons refer to the lighting of the "Magic" or "Picture" panel, if installed.

MAGIC ON/OFF turns the magic panel on/off.

MAGIC 3s turns the magic panel on for 3 seconds.

MAGIC FLICKER makes the magic panel flicker randomly, like in the short-circuit scene, for 99 seconds.

MAGIC FLICK 3s makes the magic panel flicker for 3s.

Logics Screen

The Logics screen allows you do display custom scrolling text on the front and rear logic displays if you have a Teeces or Jedi display system. It also controls other display effects, such as Flash, Alarm and Short Circuit effects. The text can be displayed in regular (Latin) alphabet, or in R2's native Aurabesh alphabet, which he prefers.

Enter the text in the text box below the corresponding logic. Note that the character set ONLY supports UPPER CASE letters. Do not use lower case letters, or they'll show up as unknown (?) characters on the display.

To switch the Logic Display to the text mode, just tap on the corresponding logic Icon above the text box. It will brighten up on the screen, and turn its mode to scrolling text. The AURABESH and LATIN button switch the character set to Aurabesh or back to regular. Should have been named ROMAN. I know. Note that the change only applies to the selected logics that are highlighted (i.e. already in text mode).