[prog] Any Arduino-chix and/or Java coders out there?

[Miriam English]

I have been meaning to get into Arduino programming (though haven't yet 
succeeded in setting aside the time needed). A little while back I 
bought some Arduino DigiSparks (http://digistump.com/category/1). They 
are constructed on a board about the size of a postage stamp (about the 
same size as the teensy, I think) that is itself a USB connector, and 
has 6 separate I/O pins (I think two of those double as USB data). Last 
I looked they were about $8 each. Maybe it would work well in this kind 
of project.

The MouseGlove and MouseKeyboard projects are fascinating.

I really must sit down and invest some time in the Arduino. It is 
becoming a game-changing technology.

Cheers,

	- Miriam


Perhaps this might

Natalie Freed wrote:
> Hi Camilla,
>
> As of (I believe) Arduino Leonardo, an Arduino can act as a mouse or
> keyboard without the need for special drivers.
> http://arduino.cc/en/Reference/MouseKeyboard. I don't know if you have the
> option to use the Leonardo or Due boards for this project, but it might
> make your life a lot easier software-wise. The Teensy is also awesome,
> Arduino software compatible and a bit cheaper:
> http://www.pjrc.com/store/teensy.html, with support for mouse/keyboard
> (mentioning it because I haven't personally tried mouse/keyboard with an
> Arduino yet, but have with the Teensy and it worked flawlessly). (if you go
> the Teensy route, the 2.0 version is probably the most Arduino-like, the
> 3.0 uses an ARM chip, runs on a lower voltage, and generally is a pretty
> different board).
>
> Hope this helps!
>
> Natalie
>
>
>
>
>
> On Sun, Dec 29, 2013 at 7:48 PM, Akkana Peck <akkana at shallowsky.com> wrote:
>
>> Camilla Montonen writes:
>>> Hello everyone,
>>> I'm trying to hack the open source Arduino mouse glove (
>>> http://mouseglove.sourceforge.net/), but have so far run
>>> into problems.
>>>
>>> I need to write a driver for the mouse glove to communicate with
>>> my computer, but unfortunately many of the Java libraries required
>>> have very obscure documentations (too much for a newbie :( ).
>>>
>>> Has anyone written mouse drivers in Java?
>>
>> I haven't ... and Java seems like a strange language to use for
>> that, though I know some Arduino people love it. But I often hit
>> the same problem you did: that the Java code doesn't "just work",
>> and I usually find that trying to get it to work turns into more
>> effort than just writing it myself.
>>
>> Because personally I'd usually use Python for something like this,
>> I googled arduino python mouse linux OR x11 (after trying a few
>> other keyword combinations that didn't yield anything useful) and
>> found a project that's doing something similar, but with a Wii nunchuck:
>> http://news.anarchy46.net/2013/04/arduino-wii-nunchuck-on-linux.html
>> The key to moving the mouse seems to be this, done when the program
>> initializes:
>>      d = Xlib.display.Display(None)
>> and then this when it's time to move the mouse:
>>          d.warp_pointer(x, y, src_window = root)
>> (that's in the move_mouse() routine).
>>
>> So if you read the serial stream coming over USB from the Arduino,
>> you could use Xlib.warp_pointer to move the mouse accordingly.
>> Reading the stream from the Arduino is easy: I have an example
>> here that just shows everything coming from the Arduino (and
>> lets you type things to send to it but you won't be needing that):
>> https://github.com/akkana/arduino/blob/master/scripts/ardmonitor
>> And if the mouse-glove code isn't as well documented as they say it
>> is, you could use ardmonitor (or just plain old screen) to watch
>> what's coming over the USB line.
>>
>> Make sure you check what speed they're using on the serial line,
>> since you have to open the serial device at the right speed or
>> nothing will work.
>>
>> I'm not sure if you're a newbie to programming in general, or just
>> to Java and Arduino. This all might sound a little daunting to a
>> beginner, but actually, I think if you fiddle around with that
>> Wii nunchuck code you'll probably be able to understand it and use it.
>> And the end result will be so much cooler than spending the same
>> amount of time trying to reverse-engineer a bunch of complicated
>> undocumented Java libraries ...
>>
>> Of course, if your favorite language is Perl or Ruby or C, I'm sure
>> it's just as easy, just look for similar libraries. I'm pretty sure
>> there are examples out there for reading arduino output in perl and
>> ruby; I haven't looked for mouse-moving examples.
>>
>> This sounds like a fun project -- good luck! And let us know how it
>> works out.
>>
>>          ...Akkana
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>
>
>

-- 
If you don't have any failures then you're not trying hard enough.
  - Dr. Charles Elachi, director of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory
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