Duckiebots now available pre-assembled & initalized
Thanks to the feedback of instructors in the Duckietown community, Duckiebots (from DB21J v3) are now available pre-assembled and initialized. Customized names are available, too.
Assembling the hardware and initializing the software of your Duckiebot can take up to more than six hours, assuming you have an already functional working environment. Doing it once is a great learning experience; repeating the process for an entire class may become tiresome.
Why pre-assembly and initialization services?
Duckiebot kits require assembly, initialization, and calibration to operate autonomously.
- Assembly is about putting together the mechanical part of the robot and making sure each component works according to specifications.
- Initialization is about installing the software and setting it up correctly.
- Calibration is about fine-tuning the behavior of sensors and actuators, for example, performing camera intrinsics and extrinsics calibrations.
While calibrations are very sensitive and should be performed just before using the Duckiebot in its actual operating environment, assembly and initialization are time-consuming activities that are fun to perform a few times, but not repeatedly.
An experienced Duckietowner might take 2-3 hours to assemble a Duckiebot, roughly one hour to initialize it, and another hour to test, address potential mistakes, update, and overall make sure that everything is working as it should. And this is assuming having already a correctly set up working environment, i.e., workstation and network.
For an inexperienced Duckietown user, it will take longer than 4-5 hours to get everything up and running.
This is why we now offer the option to acquire Duckiebots that are directly assembled, initialized, and up-to-date before they reach you.
What do you get with a pre-assembled and initialized Duckiebot
The Duckiebot pre-assembly and initialization service ensures that:
- All hardware components are recognized and operating nominally upon receiving your Duckiebot
- Your Duckiebot ships with some residual battery charge (subject to shipping regulations)
- Firmware on the HUT and battery are up to date with the latest version
- Duckiebot Software is initialized with the latest ente release
- Network is pre-installed, and the credentials are provided
- Your Duckiebot(s) is provided with a standard name (e.g., duckiebot01, duckiebot02, …, duckiebotNN)
- You get a video of the quality control tests done on each of your Duckiebots.
What should you do after receiving a pre assemble and initialized Duckiebot?
After receiving your Duckiebot, there will be a few last steps to take care of before being able to drive autonomously down your Duckietown. For example, you will:
- need a Duckietown unless you already have one;
- have to remove the protective covers from the camera, time-of-flight sensor, and screen
- customize the network credentials to your own (or, create a default duckietown network)
- calibrate the camera and odometry of your Duckiebot, and fine tune autonomy pipeline parameters for your specific environment.
Learn more about Duckietown
Duckietown enables state-of-the-art robotics and AI learning experiences.
It is designed to help teach, learn, and do research: from exploring the fundamentals of computer science and automation to pushing the boundaries of human knowledge.
