[Mod] TurtleMiner ... programmable turtles in Minetest

[BirgitLachner]

The mod is in a very early version. It does not have the full abilities and is far away from the wanted state.



I present the mod as hopefully other users are interesting in being a part of it. In fact there are many mods that have a similar idea but none if them has been finished. May be some of the ideas and solutions can be used here in the TurtleMiner mod. I'll later collect a list of all the mods that have nearly the same idea.

Code at github: https://github.com/BiLachner/TurtleMiner

My idea for the mod:
The idea of the mod is, to let young (and older) Minetest builder become a programmer. This should happen in several steps, where the user and his turtle will have more and more abilities. An idea like that is implemented for Minecraft in the mod ComputerCraftEDU (http://computercraftedu.com/).

1.) Catch a wild turtle, that lives in your world. Use you remote control to "tame" the wild turtle and have an own one. In the future may be the turtle can be customized with colors and some funny accessories.

2.) With the remote control connected to your turtle you can move the turtle around by clicking on some buttons that stands for the basic actions of the turtle like movement (forward, backward, up, down), turn around (90° right or left), take a block (only in front of the turtle??), put a block (only in front of the turtle??). See Computer-Craft for what I mean (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JX_JmVp2Vt8).

3.) The next step is to use a visual editor with blocks that give the syntax like in Scratch. It would be cool it we could use a blockly-like editor that exists for Lua (http://blockly-lua.appspot.com/static/a ... index.html). In this stage the young programmer should learn the basic possibilities of programming, using if-statements and loops and so use the turtle to build 3D buildings. An other idea to do such a programming can be found at this ComputerCraft-Video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rvheN05ArOg).
For more advanced users the possibilities of the turtle should be updated (new texture?) to have sensors and thus more possibilities to use these sensors to build/take blocks depending on the environment.

4.) Next step will be a text-editor. At first the programmer can use the visual-editor and see the code that stands behind that. May be a computer terminal should be connected to the turtle and an other update of the turtle to have this connection. For some programs it would be easier to change little things or copy parts of the code in the text-editor and so hopefully they will move to do more text-coding.


Now ... hopefully you think that my idea is good ... but the problem is that I'm not a good mod programmer and as teacher and mother with many other interests for free projects I can't learn all the needed skills and do it on my own.

So, I need you!!! What do YOU think about it!?

[octacian]

YESSS!

Somebody is FINALLY working on an awesome mod for MT! In fact, this is the second most awesome mod I've seen. even though it's no where near finished. Sorry, I still think my mod, digicompute, is the coolest mod ever made for MT :P

I'd recommend that just under the size attribute of the formspec, you put "default.gui_bg_img". It doesn't need anything surrounding it, only requires that the default mod be in the dependency list. This will make the formspec look more like other player formspecs.

I've been wanting to do this in digicompute for a while as well, and now that I've almost got the actual computers working, I shall :D. What I'm saying, is this is quite like what I want in digicompute. So, I'd be happy for you to work on your mod as a branch to my digicompute mod. When this branch was ready to go, it would be merged with the main code. This way they'd both be in the same mod, and would be able to share resources, etc... I've already got some things done there that I think you would find very useful for your mod.

Anyways, I'd be really happy to help you with your mod in any way possible (hey, it's awesome, and I want this type of thing in digicompute, so why wouldn't I?)! I've got some other ideas as to how you would get the turtle, and how you would progress from the visual editor to the plain code editor.

If you'd be interested in allowing me to work with you, or help in any way, please join my IRC channel #minetest, at irc.endev.xyz/6697 ssl (accept invalid certificates, true). Let me know if you need help setting up IRC, I've been running across a huge amount of people who don't know how to use it. If you don't tho, start by checking out hexchat.

Edit: digicompute code is here at Gogs, or at GitHub when my server is down. I'm working on making it tons more reliable though.

[azekill_DIABLO]

This is absolutly awesome, this is a revolution for minetest. The most clever npc mod comes to mt :)

[hajo]

The idea of the mod is, to let young (and older) Minetest builder become a programmer.
..
What do YOU think about it!?

Have you seen the mod miners_robots ?

[BirgitLachner]

Yes ... one of thoose mods with good ideas but not yet finished. No actions with new features in this thread since march.

[BirgitLachner]

I improved the look of the turtle a bit with nodeboxes. There will be different turtles with more and more abilities ;-)

[azekill_DIABLO]

looks very wierd, but i think it's good.

[octacian]

I've merged the mod with digicompute, you can see the resulting branch here. Take a look, and see what you think, and if you'd like to work in this in conjunction with digicompute just push changes to the turtles branch of my digicompute repository rather than the master branch of your TurtleMiner repository. The turtle is actually registered in turtles.lua, but t_api.lua is basically your init.lua except modified with the idea that more than one turtle will be registered in the future. Note that you have push access to the repository, so you can directly push to the turtles branch.

I have some ideas as to how we can quickly and easily reach your goal considering that half of the ground work is almost already done by digicompute. I'd like to suggest that the texture, nodebox, and "taming" idea be changed, to be of a craftable more robot-like design. To be specific, taming really doesn't make sense, because the turtles wouldn't be moving on their own. For it to make sense, the turtles would need to be entities, which is a bit more than what makes sense.

For the remote control, I'd also like to suggest a change. With the above change, turtles would be able to be accessed without a remote, but remotes could be easily bound to a turtle, allowing you to access the turtle's formspec remotely.

There could be two different types of turtles to start: unprotected, and protected. Meaning that the user would have to enter a password to access a protected turtle. Turtles could also have upgrades, but default having only a Lua editor, with almost no visuals (except buttons to run, and view inventory), but a "simplicity upgrade" could give beginner access to the visual editor. Since only 3 chunks of data would need to be stored, everything could be directly in the block's meta.

I've got a couple other ideas as to how we could improve the formspec to make it simpler and come closer to achieving your end goal, but that's it for now. Feel free to send me an email (theoctacian@gmail.com), otherwise I'll be active on IRC any time from 9PM to 2AM UTC.

[azekill_DIABLO]

what your doing is great!

[twoelk]

miners_robots and thus simple_robots are allready mentioned.

So here are more turtles that might provide interesting code
programmable robot (turtle)
forth turtle thing v0.2
Maybe these Workers mobs with assigned tasks could suggest some jobs of interrest.

The Remote-Controlled Car though seems to use some different controls.

[BirgitLachner]

@twoelk ... "Remote Car" sounds good. I'll have a look at it.

@endev15
okay taming ... is not the main goal. It was an idea depending on "Pokemon Go" ... find a turtle, catch it, tame it let it learn more abilites. Kids love it, so see an development. May be later ;-)

Well the design of my turtles ... my 11 year son loves it ;-) and I thing that my idea for the mod is to have something that is made for this age. And I would prefer it to have a simple turtle that can be improved, not the other direction: make a complicated turtle easier to use.
Anyway ... our ideas are not so different and may be we can create different varieties of the same mod. You offer a turtle that can be simplified and I offer turtles that can be improved. The features are nearly the same, use nearly the same formspecs and the code can be reused.

The connected remote control is a good idea ... I already had the same idea but no time to write it down. The protection is another good idea, too.
May be something like a list with ideas cloud be collected in the github-wiki.

I have some friends/colleagues online, that use Minecraft for Education so far. One is the github user "infchem" who is teacher for computer science. I did a lot with Minecraft, like a connection from Minecraft to real Hardware like a connection to Lego NXT (http://www.hancl.de/cis/?p=1140&). He told me, that he is at the moment try to convert his idea to Minetest. That could be another extension for you mod ;-).

[octacian]

I'm currently working on retexturing and making a new nodebox for the turtles. Some really interesting features are gonna depend on either meta-nodedef or animated blocks though. I hope to commit a few changes to my branch as well. I'm thinking about making them into entities, and if I can figure out UV wrapping I might, that way they will be smoother. I guess it's gotta start somewhere though.

[octacian]

I've redone the textures and made a new nodebox. You can see my version in the turtles branch of digicompute, where I'm slowly almost recreating computecraft. Even though that's not necessarily my goal.

screenshot_20161018_130302.png (131.8 KiB) Viewed 6237 times

screenshot_20161018_130255.png (427.92 KiB) Viewed 6237 times

screenshot_20161018_130246.png (444.32 KiB) Viewed 6237 times

Birgit: take a look at what I've done in my turtles branch. If you like it, keep in mind that I'll soon completely redo the formspec, to be much more like ComputerCraftEDU. Keep in mind that's where I'm going if you commit changes to my branch.

[TitiMoby]

...
I have some friends/colleagues online, that use Minecraft for Education so far. One is the github user "infchem" who is teacher for computer science. I did a lot with Minecraft, like a connection from Minecraft to real Hardware like a connection to Lego NXT (http://www.hancl.de/cis/?p=1140&). He told me, that he is at the moment try to convert his idea to Minetest. That could be another extension for you mod ;-).

I started to play with something to interact between Minetest and Arduino/Esp8266(/Microbit) but the way I implemented it is maybe a bit basic.

Feel free to send him my repo Url and/or my email ( titimoby@gmail.com )

[BirgitLachner]

@TitiMoby ... the guy is here in the forum and his name is "infchem"
memberlist.php?mode=viewprofile&u=20029
... and the same name at github!

[azekill_DIABLO]

I've redone the textures and made a new nodebox. You can see my version in the turtles branch of digicompute, where I'm slowly almost recreating computecraft. Even though that's not necessarily my goal.

screenshot_20161018_130302.png

screenshot_20161018_130255.png

screenshot_20161018_130246.png

Birgit: take a look at what I've done in my turtles branch. If you like it, keep in mind that I'll soon completely redo the formspec, to be much more like ComputerCraftEDU. Keep in mind that's where I'm going if you commit changes to my branch.

cool endev!!!

[ManElevation]

um what is the point?

[octacian]

um what is the point?

The point is to slowly teach kids how to program in Lua, through the interactive environment of Minetest. They can start with a graphical editor, and progress to plain Lua (much like ComputerCraftEDU). It's also useful for us experienced programers to waste time when we get bored.

BTW, I've stopped developing my branch at digicompute, and am in stead contributing to BirgitLachner's mod directly. At some point in the near future I will begin again at digicompute, calling them BlockBots, or just plain robots.

[Kosmos]

It is good for your school things

[BirgitLachner]

My mod starts a bit earlier. It is a common experience that young children have a problem to think stepwise, like a computer. And they need to learn that a computer only has a restricted number of commands and does not understand usual sentences.

Without computer this can be done by have two children together, go outside with them, give for example one of them a crayon and let the other give commands to draw a square on a ground. But the child with the crayon only understands command like "walk x steps" "turn to left for 90°". This is not as easy for young children as you might think.

In Minetest you can give the turtle simple commands it it wont accept others.

The visual editor is specially useful to learn how structures in a programming language works. Use for example loops to reduce the number of commands. The advantage of the visual editor is, that the child can concentrate on the steps that needs to be done and not on the syntax. Writing the code down could case frustration if the program does not work just because of a simple syntax error.

And then the step to the texteditor to learn that you need to pay attention for the syntax and make the really cool programm to create cool structures in Minetest.

[alan_derua]

Do you want to make a copy of the ComputerCraftEdu mod or is the mod just an inspiration?

I'm switching to minetest from minecraft because of the good mod api. Since Minecraft was bought by the Microsoft it became clear that there will be no official API at all. And I think finally they will drop the development of the java version and there will be only the Windows 10 Edition where they sell texturepacks and skins for $$.

I think helping to develop this mod would be a good start in minetest modding. I'm currently reading the lua manual, when I've enough practice I will definitely join the development.

For now I would suggest to divide each of your 3 big steps (remote control, text editor, visual) into small tasks, so the project has clear a development line. A person who wants to contribute won't be confused what to do. They can just accomplish the task and make a pull request then.

Another suggestion but for later is to make an EDU subgame, so the teachers can just download the subgame and start the server without having to download all the mod by themselves.

P.S. Für welche Klassen oder Alter ist dieser Mod gedacht? Der Mod ist ja eine Vorbereitung auf eine "richtige" Programmiersprache.

Als ich in der Schule war hatten wir ein Jahr lang in der 7. den Niki Roboter und dann sind wir auf Java umgestiegen. War aber in Nordrhein-Westfalen, weiß nicht wie das in anderen Ländern aussieht.

Deswegen die Frage wie sich dieser Mod positionieren soll.

[BirgitLachner]

A copy? ... hmm ... well more or less, concerning the idea. I don't have any problem to add some additional features or change some things. But the basic ideas are the same.

You ideas with the three steps are exactly what I think. I even agree with the idea of an EDU game where the mod is used. The remote control works more or less. The visual editor will be the biggest problem. The text-editor may be not, as endev15 is already developing something like that.


And now switch to german ;-)
Du kannst dich gerne an der Entwicklung beteiligen.

Für Lehrer hätte ich ja noch die Idee für ein paar Tools, mit denen man manche Sachen ohne Texteingabe regeln kann und tw. gleich für alle Schüler. Falls du also selber ein Mod beginn willst (-> siehe viewtopic.php?f=47&t=2434&start=1475#p236967)

Was die Fernbedienung betrifft, so ist sie _eigentlich_ schon fast fertig.
Das Aussehen des Formspec könnte man etwas verbessern. Die Knöpfe sind zwar nicht schlecht, aber geht sicherlich noch besser. Es fehlen auch noch Bilder zu weiteren Knöpfen.
Die Geräusche sind noch nicht so toll ... etwa laut und aufdringlich.
Es fehlt auch noch das Inventar, d.h. man müsste die Turtle gleichzeitig wie eine Truhe behandeln können, indem man z.B. mit einem Knopf die Bedienungs-Anzeige umschaltet zu einer Inventar-Ansicht mit dem eigenen Inventar daneben.
Das Setzen eines Steines vornedran und unten fehlt auch noch, aber das ist an sich nicht schwer, wenn ich erst einmal "dirt" setzen kann. Nur wenn ich auf das Inventar zugreifen will wird es schwieriger, denn dann muss ich gu+cken, was für ein Stein dort sitzt und wie viele da sind.


Was ich anders machen wollte als in ComputerCraft ist die Entwicklung der Turtle.
D.h. man fängt mit einer Turtle (Turtle1) an, die man per Fernbedienung an sich bindet (-> Turtle 2 mit Funkschwanz)
Im Moment muss man die Turtle mit der Fernbedienung anklicken, um sie bedienen zu können. Falls man an sie nicht drankommt, ist das natürlich unpraktisch. D.h. war schon der Vorschlag, das man mit der Fernbedienung sie auch dann bedienen kann, wenn man mit der Fernbedienung in der Hand (nach der Verbindung) rechts klicken kann, um sie weiter zu steuern. Da müsste ich mich noch informieren, wie man das macht.

Im nächsten Schritt soll die Turtle Grab- und Bau Rechte bekommen (-> Turtle3), das Bedienfeld passt sich dem an. Die Turtle kann dann aber nur "dirt" bauen.

Dann bekommt die Turtle ein Inventar (-> Turtle4), aus dem ich Sachen entnehmen kann oder auch hineinlegen.

Der nächste Schritt wäre ein Sensor, mit dem die Turtle Stein-Typen detektieren kann. Wobei dies bei der Fernbedienung eigentlich fast keinen Sinn mehr macht.

Man könnte die Turtle auf der Workbench einfach erweitern oder im Rahmen eines Spiels eine spezielle Turtle-Update Station einfügen. Eventuell würde man dann noch spezielle Items erstellen, die die Spieler nach der Erledigung einer Aufgabe bekommen könnten um die Turtle aufzuwerten.
Ich habe da die Idee einen Pacours zu machen, indem bestimmte Aufgaben erledigt werden müssen.

Wobei das natürlich nur eine Idee ist.

Ergänzend würde ich ein paar Blöcke ergänzen, die spezielles Verhalten gegenüber der Turtle zeigen, wie etwa nicht abbaubar, durchsichtig und undurchsichtig, die man für den Parcours bräuchte.

Meine Idee zur Entwicklung ist nur ein Aspekt. Im Grund genommen reicht im ersten Schritt eine Turtle die alles kann, was ich zuerst beschrieben habe. Die Beschränkung ist ein anderer Aspekt, der eher programmiertechnisch schwierig wird.

Okay ... nachdem ich alles ausführlich beschrieben habe, sollte ich das am besten in Englisch übersetzen und auf github platzieren, damit Interessenten was zu tun haben. ;-)
.. so Mittagszeit.

[hajo]

It was an idea depending on "Pokemon Go" ...
find a turtle, catch it, tame it let it learn more abilites.

I have been playing a bit with this mod active, but no turtle sighted yet.

Looking at the code, I don't see when/where/how they should spawn.
And the docs don't tell how to get a turtle, or how to build that controller.

[octacian]

It was an idea depending on "Pokemon Go" ...
find a turtle, catch it, tame it let it learn more abilites.

I have been playing a bit with this mod active, but no turtle sighted yet.

Looking at the code, I don't see when/where/how they should spawn.
And the docs don't tell how to get a turtle, or how to build that controller.

The mod is not ready for active use. Turtles do not spawn anywhere on the map, and may never. I personally am against the idea of finding a turtle, and the fact that they are literals turtles in the first place, but. There are no recipes for the controller or turtle as of yet. For now you have to do /giveme. Sometime soon, once the editor is completed and the mod is more stable, we will work on recipes and I'm gonna try and talk Birgit into changing the turtles :P

Thankfully though, there's multiply turtles. One of them being mine, which looks pretty great :-P

[azekill_DIABLO]

+1

[cHyper]

+1
nice...

[BirgitLachner]

The easiest way to to get turtles is to be in creative mod and search in the inventory for "turtle".

The "Pokemon Idee" is quite far away :-)

[hajo]

The easiest way to to get turtles is to be in creative mode

Ok, I tried that.
It looks like all those different types of turtles currently have the same abilities,
i.e. they all can dig, and have no inventory yet.

They don't look very different, so it would be nice if you could paint and/or
name them, so that it showed "turtle Hugo owned by singleplayer" when looked at.

Stacking one on top of another looks strange, because it doesn't actually land.

It would be nice if you could ride turtles, like the boat.

Also, the controler could use some work:
* up/down and forward/backward are easy to get wrong
** maybe change of layout
** tooltips
* input-field, for turtle-name

[octacian]

The easiest way to to get turtles is to be in creative mode

Ok, I tried that.
It looks like all those different types of turtles currently have the same abilities,
i.e. they all can dig, and have no inventory yet.

They don't look very different, so it would be nice if you could paint and/or
name them, so that it showed "turtle Hugo owned by singleplayer" when looked at.

Stacking one on top of another looks strange, because it doesn't actually land.

It would be nice if you could ride turtles, like the boat.

Also, the controler could use some work:
* up/down and forward/backward are easy to get wrong
** maybe change of layout
** tooltips
* input-field, for turtle-name

hmm, all those are great ideas. I'll consider working on implementing some of those in testing :D

However, riding, and making sure they actually "land" on top of each other, is impossible with them as nodes. This would require entities, which is currently far in the future, still a great idea though.

Nametags also require the use of entities, but I will make a commit that uses the infotext for now.

As for the controller, I'm soon to be working on new icons. Not only that, but once I complete the upgrade system, some turtles will be able to access the player's controls, and for example, move forwards when the player presses "w", as well as show a camera view.

[hajo]

@twoelk ... "Remote Car" sounds good. I'll have a look at it.

You place the car on the ground,
activate it by clicking with the remote,
then click on some spot on the ground,
and the car drives back+forth between those points...

But the model of the car looks cool :)

It would add a lot of replay-value if it had a remote like the turtles,
maybe with just buttons forward/left/right / exit.

The deluxe-version could have additional buttons,
like "mark waypoint" and "start race = replay",
where the car would move from waypoint to waypoint.

So, how about a fork of rc-cars ?