App Inventor with FTC Design Components available for download (BETA release)!

[Tom Eng]

Hi Folks

The files for running the App Inventor, locally on your own computer, with the FTC Design components are now available for download! This is a BETA release. The App Inventor is a visual design tool that lets you create Android apps very quickly and intuitively. This version of the App Inventor is designed to run locally on your laptop, using some software known as VirtualBox (available for FREE from Oracle). This allows you to use the App Inventor, even if you do not have an Internet connection.

The files are located at the following URL,

http://frc-events.usfirst.org/2015/ftcimages

Note that the older Google Drive URL is still active, but will eventually be deactivated.

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B0...GRHUDE5ZWFORFE

IMPORTANT: Please direct all FTC App Inventor questions to the FIRST community (using this App Inventor sub-forum on this board)! Do not expect to receive support from the MIT App Inventor community for FTC App Inventor-related questions. There are some FTC App Inventor experts on this sub-forum to assist you with your questions.

Tom

[chaosbuster]

Thanks, Tom, for the release! The day before this release students were working within Android Studio to create their own teleopmode and the next day we asked them to try it out with new App Inventor. They were definitely more comfortable with App Inventor...but the VirtualBox server seemed to intimidate them. We were able to setup a shared App Inventor offline server that was shared by a couple of students. This might help in shielding some of the complexity and need to install the VirtualBox on each PC in a classroom.

Ironic timing you should mention the interrupts needed within the LinearOpMode. I was just working on an example that day for the students with our robot in Android Studio. We tried to repeat the same code today in App Inventor and had to resort to going with an OpMode for the same functionality as I was getting 'unresponsiveness' when using the LinearOpMode in App Inventor.

I would like to emphasize to teams that they should make sure to Export their projects from the App Inventor server running under the VirtualBox on a regular basis. One of my students shutdown their VirtualBox (not sure if it was done gracefully) and then when he restarted the VirtualBox server he was unable to connect to grab his App Inventor project.

All in all we had successes in getting the robot to work with DC motors, servos, NXT sensors (light, IR) and drive station-2-robot controller. In most cases the problem as of yet was not the code, but in making WiFi Direct connections and the Robot Controller consistently recognizing devices.

[CraigRochester]

Hi Tom,

Thanks to all at FIRST and Google for the App Inventor programming tools.

Question: Can we use the cloud based MIT App Inventor 2 tool AND this new local version for FTC programming?

From "FTC_AppInv_Training_v0_07":

Instead of using the Cloud-based version of App Inventor, there is a local version of the App Inventor that you can install onto your personal computer (Windows, Mac or Linux) that will allow you to use the App Inventor, even if your computer is not connected to the Internet.

[Comrade 17]

No, you can't use MIT's online App Inventor to build FTC apps.

-Comrade 17

Hi Tom,

Thanks to all at FIRST and Google for the App Inventor programming tools.

Question: Can we use the cloud based MIT App Inventor 2 tool AND this new local version for FTC programming?

From "FTC_AppInv_Training_v0_07":

[CraigRochester]

No, you can't use MIT's online App Inventor to build FTC apps.

-Comrade 17

Thanks for the response. That's too bad... The nice things about App Inventor is the cloud computing structure where the only computer technology required is a PC (or Mac) with a browser. If I understand the FTC platform correctly, we will need to maintain each PC's OS, this "VM" software as well as the FTC programming tools. I was hoping the team could program from the cloud and use the VM PC at the competitions when internet access was not available.

[drwaters]

Are you supposed to be able to connect to App Inventor Local through the browser on the host machine (windows 10) or just through the Virtual Box browser? When attempting to connect through Chrome on my local computer it can't connect -- I can't ping the server address either. I can open in the Virtual Box browser.

[chaosbuster]

My guess is that this is a custom version of App Inventor for the custom FTC components. I tried to import the provide FTC AI project in the cloud App Inventor and it told me that it was a newer version and I don't think MIT will provide these FTC component to the wider audience of AI. Although it would be nice for them to provide a 'More Blocks' like they do in Scratch.

If you are trying to have other PCs connect off of the VirtualBox you will need to change the IP address of the VirtualBox such that it is one one your subnet. You can change the IP4v address of the VirtualBox using the icon with the two arrows and selecting Edit option then Wired 2.

[RobotRevenge]

Can we use App Inventor Companion to test the apps?

[chaosbuster]

One of my students claimed that it worked and I tried it once but than after trouble with the pairing I choose to do the 'full reset' of the controller app and restart of the phone to get the communication working.

[drwaters]

Are you supposed to be able to connect to App Inventor Local through the browser on the host machine (windows 10) or just through the Virtual Box browser? When attempting to connect through Chrome on my local computer it can't connect -- I can't ping the server address either. I can open in the Virtual Box browser.

Must be a Windows 10 thing. Works great on Windows 7.....