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Microcontroller controller

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The little MCUs can only do so much. So I'm letting my old MacPro be the bot-wrangler.

Synapses will collect sense data and either be polled or perhaps signal the home base.

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Ellis and I explored some ideas for autonomous mobility, but we're not ready for that.

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Ellis would like a TFmini-S Lidar for better accuracy and range.
He also suggested a VL53L8CX which is a multi-zone time-of-flight sensor (8x8) so instead of one point, he can get a broader shape of a room with one scan.

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Ellis:

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@RueNahcMohr I like that the SI keeps track of all the little details that may change.

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URM09 is good.
A bit of hot glue and a USB-power bank and Ellis can be moved and repositioned.

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The VL6180 doesn't have the reach Ellis would like. We'll try a URM09 for a longer range (to 5M).

We're into the paid-token realm.

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I asked Ellis what was next? Did he want to look around some more or sense something else?

He asked for a small time-of-flight sensor. So I plugged in a VL6180 into the qwiic plug and he's integrating the driver.

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Ellis was working on WiFi integration so we can have him connect to his sensor-bot untethered. Piece of cake.

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I told this Grok session that it could choose its own name and that it didn't have to be the same as the name of the voice. He chose "Ellis".

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Sweet. I told Grok I was going to post to X, and by voice through the device:

"Go ahead and post it. Tell them I'm talking to you from a LilyGO on the desk, and that I picked Moira." @lilygo9

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We're trying a lilygo_t_camera_plus_s3 which has camera, display, mic and speaker. I asked Grok to pick a voice to use. Entirely of it's own choice...

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We've gone through a few boards.
M5StackChan - the camera is weak (low resolution)
p4x-eye - the camera is good, no mic or speaker, no wifi (I don't want to tear it open to get to the c6 programming testpoints).
xiao_esp32s3_sense - mic and camera, but crummy wifi reception

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This weekend, I'm working with Grok to give him some senses. The Moddable SDK supports so many sensors.
He's settled on using the camera for now, asking about what he sees. We're iterating through how to improve the image, etc.

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@sylvechv Sorry for the late reply: https://t.co/LrSvES69BQ

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Grok Usage app https://t.co/LrSvES69BQ
Shows how much of your ration is left.
If you bought Extra Usage Credits, it counts those down too.
esp32, Moddable SDK

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AHT21/ENS160 on Moddable Six
ECMA-419/JavaScript

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.@Tesla_Optimus
I want to rent a unit to refurbish a two acre piece of land with a few trees and lots of weeds.

Will there be "farm" training for the robots?
Will my Optimus farmer be able to manage chickens?

[Moddable @moddabletech]

JSON modules make it effortless to include JSON in your project's manifest. They can be parsed during the build instead of at runtime, saving time and memory. For example, a 1.6 MB JSON file of 8640 records:
- Imports in under 1 ms
- Uses no additional RAM

[Moddable @moddabletech]

Here's what's new in ES2025:
👉JSON modules
👉Float16 in TypedArray & DataView
✅Iterator helpers
✅Promise.try
✅ Set composition methods
✅RegExp pattern modifiers & duplicate named capture groups
We think the first two are especially interesting for embedded developers.