After changes to the robot hardware, a new software SD card image and lots of work on the robot, I needed to get the camera going again. It seems that the parts I’d not been paying attention to were now broken.

Getting the camera working

• I need the picamera python library:

pip install picamera

• Now try my skittletrack code - which has had a tiny bit of python 3 adapting.
• No module gpiozero - do we really use it? No - removed.
• We then need the camera enabled:

picamera.exc.PiCameraError: Camera is not enabled. Try running 'sudo raspi-config' and ensure that the camera has been enabled.

• Tried enabling it in raspi config. Nope. AH - it’s not plugged in. Shutdown and fix that.

After refitting and rebooting

Try again - get it running.

Yes - it works - and tracks!

We have working tracking - for random objects. Need to find HSL values for stuff, but this is a good start.

Single distance sensor

It looks like this can be done with rpi gpio (as in Piconzero datasheet) or perhaps with gpiozero.

It was a dependency of the skittlebot class in the code.

Multiple sensors

This is going to get interesting. I had a chat with @4tronix and asked for some ideas for using multiple distance sensors with the PiConZero. The PiConZero itself wouldn’t be able to, but additional GPIO boards could. So the options are:

• creating a shim to attach to sensors.
• Finding an IO extender/interceptor board.