This book features a companion Web site that makes available to you all the code used in the book. This code is organized by chapter, and you can download it from the companion site at this address: http://www.microsoft.com/mspress/companion/9780735624320.
All of the code samples provided on the book’s companion Web site are written in C#. They are accessible by using Visual Studio 2005 to open the associated solution file. Readers can use any version of Visual Studio 2005 to access these files, including the Visual Studio Express Edition, which is available as a free download from the Microsoft Web site. To execute the code samples, readers will need to assemble and configure the associated robotics hardware.
Readers unable to access the hardware from each chapter can either modify the code to work with their particular hardware platform or follow along with the code without attempting to execute the application. The code samples available on the book’s companion Web site include the following:
Chapter 5. BasicDrive/BasicDrive.sln—Loads the BasicDrive.csproj project in Visual Studio. To execute this application, readers will need to configure the Create robot by iRobot (see the section in Appendix B titled Configuring the iRobot Create).
Chapter 6. Version1/Wander.sln—The first version of this application will use the touch sensor from the LEGO NXT robot as a contact sensor.
Version2/Wander.sln—Version 2 of the Wander service will utilize the sonar and sound sensors from the LEGO NXT robot. Before executing this service, the reader will need to assemble and configure the LEGO NXT robot (see the section in Appendix B titled Configuring the LEGO Mindstorms NXT).
Chapter 7. ARobot/ARobot/ARobot/ARobot.sln—Opening this solution file with Visual Studio will load multiple projects. The first project, named ARobot, represents the control or brick service. The second project, named ARobotServices, holds all the services used to control the ARobot’s sensors and actuators. The last project, named ARobotTest, should be the Startup project (this is the case if the text for the project is bolded). Before executing the ARobotTest service, the reader will need to assemble and configure the ARobot by Arrick Robotics (see the section in Appendix B titled Configuring the Arrick Robotics ARobot).
Chapter 8. SecurityMonitor.sln—Loads the SecurityMonitor.csproj project in Visual Studio. To execute this application, you will need to assemble and configure the ARobot. The services used to communicate with the ARobot would have been created in Chapter 7. You will need to compile that project on your machine before you can start working with this project.
Note
Even though code samples are not provided for the Boe-Bot robot, Appendix B includes a section titled Configuring the Parallax Boe-Bot. This robot is introduced in Chapter 3.
As new or updated material becomes available the completments your book, it will be posted online on the Microsoft Press Online Developer Tools Web site. The type of material you might find includes updates to book content, articles, links to companion content, errata, sample chapters, and more. The Web site will be available soon at http://www.microsoft.com/learning/books/online/developer and will be updated periodically.