The Robot Compiler (RoCo) is a robotics codesign and fabrication environment to help the general public create their own robots. This graphic shows the modular, co-design interface being streamed through a web browser without users needing to register, download, or install anything.
Previously, RoCo existed as a standalone Python program. Although this allowed us total flexibility with our program architecture and design, we now plan to migrate our progress into an addon for Blender, a popular, open-source, computer-aided design (CAD) program. We have found that the benefits of Blender, such as a mature user interface and dependable CAD functionalities, will help move RoCo forward. In addition to providing the source code for users to install locally, we plan to host RoCo using Amazon Web Services. This will allow anybody with a computer to use RoCo without any setup, regardless of hardware or operating system.
In the above graphic, we show a draft of the codesign interface. Codesign is a design methodology where the user is able to design across multiple domains simultaneously, namely, mechanical, electrical, and software. On the right, we have the mechanical view, where the user may see their physical design. The bottom left currently shows the code used to generate the grid on the right; later, this will be converted to the electrical view. On the top left, we have the software view, where users may program their robot.