Hello World in Bottango

Since everyone learns in their own way, Bottango provides different strategies for learning. In this “crash course” section, we’ll quickly run through steps to go from zero to a simple robot arm that can wave - a quick Bottango “Hello World.” If you like to learn by doing, and get just enough steps and information to be able to start experimenting yourself, this section will be a good introduction to the most foundational workflows in Bottango.

Note

This crash course will throw a lot of steps at you without explanation. It also will not mention alternative approaches or related functionality. It’s just the minimum steps to create a moving robot in Bottango so you can experiment and learn.

If you prefer more context, including detailed walkthroughs, check out the comprehensive documentation starting in Workspace & UI.

This crash course moves quickly and throws a lot your way! Don’t worry if you don’t get every step right, or have a hard time keeping it all straight in your head. After going through the crash course, you shouldn’t feel like a Bottango expert. Your goal is to get just enough foundational concepts to feel enabled to successfully experiment with and continue to learn the software.

The Example Crash Course Robot

You won’t have a real-world robot that matches the robot we’ll model and animate in this crash course, and there’s no expectation that you should. Your project will have different setups and different requirements. You’ll need to take the concepts of this crash course, and apply it to your own specific requirements.

Note

Bottango is a great tool for controlling your robot, but it doesn’t replace or provide the tools and knowledge to actually build a robot. This crash course is on controlling robotics with Bottango, not on building robots.

If you want an all-in-the-box animatronic kit, you can check out our animatronic kit products. Otherwise, there’s countless tutorials, videos, and software across the internet to help you design and build your own robot.

The example robot will use the most basic hardware supported by Bottango:

• 2x PWM Servo Motors
• 1x Arduino Uno R3 connected to the computer via USB
• 1x Bottango Servo Shield to power the servos.

Though that only scratches the surface of supported hardware and what you can do with Bottango, it’ll be a great foundation to learn the most core concepts.