Rapid prototyping robotics with ROS and IPython
a workshop with Igor Zubrycki & Lidia Lipinska

On this workshop, you will learn how to connect to and program robots using Python.

  • We will introduce you to the Robot Operating System, which is a widely used framework for prototyping robots with a great number ready to use robotic packages for various robotic skills.
  • You will learn how Ipython and Jupyter Notebook can be used to rapidly create applications that access robots in real-time and you will write yours on the program to control a real robot!
  • We will bring a set of robots connectable to ROS so that you could make them move and collect data for you.
  • You will see how Python can be used to do robotic stuff fast and see how powerful can be a Jupyter Notebook when using it with ROS.

Before coming to this workshop, please install some software:

The github repository for the workshop.

We will provide you with a virtual machine with Ubuntu 16.06 and ROS installed. You need to be able to run this virtual machine, to do so please install following:

Some tips for the installation are available in Getting_Started_with_virtual_environment.ipynb.

You need to have ~13 GB free space for the image.

The virtual machine will be provided in .ova (Open Virtualization Appliance) so it is theoretically possible to use it with other virtualization software, but we will not have time to provide support.

Similarly, if you have Ubuntu (16.04) installed, you can install ROS and Ipython robot prototyping package in your native system (the instruction is provided in the README file of the repository "manual install") but we will not have time to help you with that during the workshop.

This workshop is suitable for both beginner and advanced Pythonistas.

Igor Zubrycki

I’m a roboticist, finishing my Ph.D. at Lodz University of Technology, doing human-robot interaction experiments and using Python to prototype robots and my experiments.

Lidia and me and love teaching people new things and learning deeply about new things. We conducted workshops about DataScience, robotics, and prototyping using Python to various audiences.

We conducted a workshop about ROS and Python at PyCon PL 2017. We are also the organizers of PyData Łódź and Data Science Łódź groups.

We prepared our own robot of our own design for interactive art exhibition in Tate Modern in London.

GH: AdoHaha
TW: IgorZub

Lidia Lipinska

I'm a Ph.D. candidate at the Łódź University of Technology. I'm a biotechnologist who likes working with bioreactors, learning languages and meeting new people.

I learned Python myself to do my own data analysis and make nice plots for my Ph.D., but I got hooked and now I co-organize Łódź's PyData group meetups and use Python for data analysis and for fun.

GH: lidkalee
TW: lidkalee