Basic Robot Project

How to run it?

How it works?

The program simulate a user program running. To run a user program, Enter it's name and press run. You can press on Running Options, to control on the running: go back to the first step, go back one step (<<<),go forward one step (>>>) or to continune the running. Here there is three simples user programs: FirstProgram, SecondProgram and Third Program.

Creating your own program

• Create file called userProgram of class in the same name.
• The class should extends RobotProgram.
• It should be able to find all java files at ~jarom/www/project ,  by coping them or with soft link (ln -s ~jarom/www/project). All files placed at Robot.jar file.
• It should have main method: public void main(String[] args)
• To create a BasicRobot object, named joe at (1,2) facing North with 3 beepers, you should write: BasicRobot joe = new BasicRobot (1,2,3,"North",this);    

The robot interface

The BasicRobot interface, means the command you can give to the robot object, are:

• move - moving forward one step.
• turnLeft - turning left.
• pickBeeper - pick up one beeper.
• putBeeper - put down one beeper.
• turnOff - ends the robot running.
• xLoc, yLoc - return the (x,y) location of the robot.
• facing - return the direction that the robot facing.
• facingNorth, facingSouth, facingEast, facingWest - return true if the robot facing the direction that asked, false otherwise.
• anyBeepersInBag - return true if there is any beepers at bag, false otherwise.

In the user program there is a world object called myWorld. The user can ask the world those questions:

• frontIsClear(x,y,facing) - return true if the front is clear.
• leftIsClear(x,y,facing) - return true if left is clear.
• rightIsClear(x,y,facing) - return true if right is clear.
• nextToABeeper(x,y,facing) - return true if the robot is next to a beeper.
  (The facing parameter add just to create a uniform parameters structure).

How it loads the user program

Let's say we have a user program look like this:

public class UserProgram extends RobotProgram {
    public void main(String[] args) {
        BasicRobot lisa = new BasicRobot(2,3,4,"East",this);
        lisa.turnLeft();
        lisa.turnLeft();
        lisa.goForward();
        BasicRobot joe = new BasicRobot(3,4,1,"West",this);
        joe.goForward();
        joe.turnLeft();
        joe.goForward();
        lisa.turnLeft();
        lisa.goForward();
        lisa.goForward();
    }
}

When you run the Robot.class (by running RobotSim.htm), and pressing the run button, when the the program file is UserProgram, it does the following:

1. It send the request to the dynamicLoaderThrad, to load the program.
2. The dynamicLoaderThrad takes the fileName string and make it a RobotProgram class.
3. makes a RobotProgram object.
4. runs it main method.
5. When a BasicRobot object has been created, as a process of the RobotProgram running, it turn the RobotProgram to be an observer of the BasicRobot object.
6. For every action that the BasicRobot done, it inform the RobotProgram who calling the repaint action of the Robot.

The project objects

• Robot - The main program.
• BasicWorld - is the world of the robot.
• BasicWorldWalls - is the world walls object.
• BasicWorldBeepers - is the world beepers object
• DynamicLoaderThread - is the user programs running thread.
• RobotProgram - is the user robot program cover.
• BasicRobot - is the BasicRobot object.
• RobotRunningHistory - remember all the running steps, and enable to simulate each step.
• RobotButtonsPanel - operate the buttons of the robot panel.
• LoadWorld - loads a world from a file.
• SaveWorld - saves the world to a file.

Some notes

• When a robot hit a wall, or try to pick up beeper when trere is no beeper, it ends its running.
• When one of the robots ends its running, the other robots will continue their running.

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