Preparing a Driver

Essential Topic for learning Bottango.

Big idea

Upload the provided Bottango firmware onto your microcontroller using either the built-in options in the Bottango app, or by using the provided source code and the Arduino IDE.

In order for Bottango to do anything, you need to upload the provided Bottango firmware based on the Arduino framework to a compatible microcontroller, and connect it to your computer. For this documentation, we’ll assume you’re connecting to your microcontroller via USB. There are other much more advanced options, but a USB connection is by far the simplest.

If you’re using an Arduino Uno R3, Arduino Nano, or Arduino Mega, you can use the options in the Bottango app itself to install the stock Bottango firmware, no need to use the source code.

For any other microcontroller, included in the archive that contains the installer for the Bottango application is an open-source Arduino framework C++ codebase that makes up the Bottango firmware.

If you’re not really comfortable with coding, you can just follow the instructions to upload the provided program to a microcontroller and forget about it. However, if you are more code-savvy, I encourage you to examine the program and get a sense of how it works. If you familiarize yourself with the kinds of commands the microcontroller is programmed to respond to, you can modify how your microcontroller responds to Bottango commands away from the default, if your robot requires it.

Uploading and Updating Bottango Firmware in Bottango

If you are using an Arduino Uno, Nano, or Mega, you may be able to upload or update the Bottango firmware directly inside Bottango, without using the Arduino IDE.

Follow the steps in this section of the documentation to connect to and upload the firmware directly from the app.

Note

If you’re using Bottango-provided hardware drivers as part of our animatronic kits, you should always upload the Bottango firmware via the app, as it is specially configured out of the box to work best with your kit.

Uploading the firmware using the Arduino IDE

If your microcontroller isn’t one of the kinds that can be uploaded to via the Bottango app, or for any reason you’re struggling to get it to work, you’ll need to use the provided source code and the Arduino IDE.

Instructions on how to go through those steps can be found in these steps

Keeping your hardware driver up to date

Bottango has a very exact communication protocol with connected hardware drivers. As Bottango develops and evolves, so too does the communication protocol.

Every time you download a new version of Bottango, you may need to update the Bottango firmware on your hardware driver. You’ll be notified when that’s the case. Until you do, Bottango won’t be able to communicate with your hardware driver except to notify you that it needs to update.