A couple weeks ago we highlighted a video from Sebastian Brandes where he shows off  controlling a Parrot AR.Drone with a Kinect, Kinect Parrot AR.Drone 2.0 DemoSeems there's a good deal of interest in the project, and people bugging him for the code, so he's wrapped it all up and released it!If you're thinking about doing the same thing, these posts might come in handyBack in October I went to an internal Microsoft hackathon in Lisbon and together with an awesome team I built a Kinect controller for the Parrot AR.Check out the blog post I wrote about it. We named it Firefly and during the past 6 or 7 weeks I have received quite a lot emails about how it works and if I could publish the source code.In this post I will explain how it all works and share the source code so you can start hacking on it yourself. In order to follow the steps in this post you will need:Kinect for Windows (version 1)Parrot AR.Drone 2.0A PC with Windows 7 or 8/8.1Kinect for Windows SDK v1.8 — free download hereAlso, you will need the WPF application my team and I made in Lisbon.

/sebastianbk/FireflyHow To Make It WorkFirst of all you need to fully charge the battery to your Parrot AR.Drone 2.0 and, then, place it in the drone. Once the drone has completed its small startup routine you will have to connect to its WiFi access point.You will also have to connect your Kinect for Windows v1 to an available USB port on your PC and plug the power cable into a wall outlet. Once it’s properly connected you can see a green LED lighting up on the face of the Kinect.Assuming that you have already downloaded and installed the Kinect for Windows SDK v1.8 you are now ready to fire up the Firefly application. Either unzip the pre-compiled WPF application or clone the Git repository, open up Visual Studio and compile the application from there. Start up the application and you will see the following window popping up.JavaScript was created a little over 20 years ago with the primary use of manipulating HTML pages in web browsers. It allowed people to interact with static content on web pages without needing to reload the page.

Some original common use cases for JavaScript were to validate forms in real time, animate elements on a page, and dynamically load new content. Now fast-forward to today and you’ll see the language has come a long way, and it’s not restricted to running only in web browsers anymore. parrot ar drone for sale south africaThose of you who are familiar with JavaScript most likely learned it by implementing some of those use cases I just mentioned, but today I want to go over some awesome — yet not-so-commonly known — areas where you can use JavaScript. ar drone 2 police hullIf you’re learning JavaScript today, you’ll most likely also want to learn Node.js. ar drone motors emergency error

All of the following topics require the use of Node in some way, which is why I want to mention it as a prerequisite. Node is basically a runtime environment that allows you to develop server-side web applications in JavaScript that let your application communicate with databases, file systems, data streams, and more. parrot ar drone spare parts australiaWith Node, it’s possible to create applications that are written completely in JavaScript, as opposed to using a different language — such as Python, PHP, or Java — to handle the server-side requests as was the norm several years ago. parrot ar drone 2 range extenderIt’s really easy to get started doing some robotics programming with JavaScript. ar drone battery troubleshooting

To get started you’ll need: Arduino boards are small microcontrollers that are capable of reading input — for example, a light or touch sensor that produces some sort of output, such as flashing an LED light or spinning a motor. The classic “Hello World” program of the microcontroller world is getting an LED light to blink, which is really easy with JavaScript. Here’s the example: You can view the whole installation process and more code examples on GitHub. NodeBots is a group that hosts events focusing on JavaScript robotics, and they have a ton of fun and interesting projects created by the community that you can see on their website. Drones, or more accurately quadcopters, are becoming increasingly more popular, and of course there are now ways to control these drones via JavaScript. The most popular programmable drone is the Parrot AR Drone 2.0. It costs between $250-300, and to write programs that control the drone you’ll need to have Node installed on your computer. Once you have these two things, there are over a dozen node modules that allow you to control the drone via JavaScript.

For example, you can control the drone using an interface within your browser, using a Wii controller, or you can even have your drone fly autonomously and take panoramas. You can also use the bare-bones node-ar-drone module and write your own programs to control the drone. A simple program that gets your drone into the air, rotates it, flips it, and then lands it looks like the following: When compared to lower-level languages, such as C or Java, JavaScript is usually outperformed drastically in terms of speed and performance. A partial solution to this is asm.js, which is simply a strict subset of the JavaScript language with some constraints and optimizations that allows programs written using asm.js to run at near-native speeds. A good example of an application where asm.js would be useful is a chess program where the computer needs to run several algorithms performing thousands of computations a second to determine the next best move in the game. If algorithms, optimization, and performance interest you, there are several websites devoted to coding challenges that range from simple string manipulation to more advanced algorithms.

Some popular websites are HackerRank, Coderbyte, and TopCoder. It’s now possible to create virtual reality scenes in your browser or on your mobile device with JavaScript. Most tutorials and games you create will require three.js, which is a 3D JavaScript library that allows you to easily create 3D scenes and manipulate them. You can see what three.js is capable of with this Minecraft example. To create virtual reality scenes in JavaScript, the easiest way to get started is to first get a Google Cardboard headset, which you can find for less than $20, and then set up three.js along with a few other JavaScript libraries. Check out this tutorial, which explains how you can get started. If you already own a Cardboard headset, you can also check out Chrome Experiments to experience virtual reality on your mobile device. With the recent release of React Native, it’s now possible to build native phone applications entirely in JavaScript! React Native is a framework that allows you to create mobile apps that actually use native components and function like native apps, but you don’t have to learn a new language, such as Swift or Java, to get started — you’re able to use JavaScript.