

Show HN: Wrote Arduino ruby prototyping API gem on new year (my first gem) - SingAlong
http://akash.im/arduino-ruby

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samratjp
Nice, this will come in handy with the telepresence robot I and my friend have
been building [http://samratjp.posterous.com/look-ma-im-controlling-a-
telep...](http://samratjp.posterous.com/look-ma-im-controlling-a-telepresence-
robot)

Yeah, it's pretty annoying to prototype whilst waiting for the damn thing to
burn and this being a telepresence robot, I actually code it remotely (my
friend has the actual hardware) using a weird combination of Dropbox, github
and ssh to prototype and test. This should help. Will let you know how it
comes along.

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steveklabnik
Nice! How's this compare to RAD? <https://github.com/atduskgreg/rad>

~~~
SingAlong
RAD compiles your ruby code to arduino programs everytime you want to run it.

This arduino gem is a load-once-and-play thing. You load the provided
arduino.pde file to the board and use the gem to talk to the Arduino to
perform actions like set/get pin states etc. So then instead of writing
programs, burning them to the board and testing them, you could just fire up
irb on your console and start prototyping your stuff or write a ruby script.

P.S: if I can get my hands on bluetooth-bee or arduino wifi shields, I plan to
make the same thing possible on those connections too. Right now the board has
to be connected via the serial port.

~~~
nitrogen
So this makes the Arduino act kind of like a USB bitwhacker? Or does it use a
higher level of abstraction than that?

<http://www.sparkfun.com/products/762>

~~~
SingAlong
A higher level of abstraction. Unlike the bitwhacker where you pass simple
serial commands, the communication is simplified with easy-to-use ruby
methods.

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throw_away
the link to arduino.pde seems busted (relative rather than absolute url).

