cubelets

node-cubelets

Communicate with Cubelets using node.js

What are Cubelets?

Cubelets are magnetic blocks that can be snapped together to make an endless variety of robots. You can communicate with and program them in node.js with a Bluetooth Cubelet.

Connect

First, pair your Bluetooth Cubelet to OS X, Windows, or Linux. A serial connection will be used to communicate with the Cubelet using node-serialport.

To find the name of the device on OS X and Linux:

> ls /dev | grep Cubelet
cu.Cubelet-MOD
tty.Cubelet-MOD

On Windows, go to the Properties of the device in the Device Manager, and find the COM port for the Cubelet. The name will be something like "COM3", "COM42", etc.

Then, open a connection:

var cubelets = require('cubelets')

var device = {
  path: '/dev/cu.Cubelet-GPW-AMP-SPP'
}

var client = cubelets.connect(device, function (err) {
  console.log('connected to', device)
})

Discover

Once connected, you can discover other Cubelets connected to the Bluetooth Cubelet.

// Listen for incremental updates to the graph,
// as data becomes available.
client.on('updateBlockMap', function () {
  console.log('Origin block', client.getOriginBlock())
  console.log('Neighbor blocks', client.getNeighborBlocks())
  console.log('All blocks (except origin)', client.getAllBlocks())
  console.log('By ID', client.findBlockById(1234))
  console.log('By hop count', client.filterBlocksByHopCount(2))
  console.log('Graph', client.getGraph())
})

// Fetch the graph. Callback is fired once entire
// graph has been retrieved.
client.fetchGraph(function (err, graph) {
  console.log('Nodes:', graph.nodes)
  console.log('Edges:', graph.links)
})