Module 8 - Section 4 - Events and decisions

8.4.2 - Event Handling

Write the following program to have the Edison robot continuously drive and avoid obstacles.

#-------------Setup----------------

import Ed

Ed.EdisonVersion = Ed.V2

Ed.DistanceUnits = Ed.CM
Ed.Tempo = Ed.TEMPO_MEDIUM

#--------Your code below-----------

#turn on obstacle detection
Ed.ObstacleDetectionBeam(Ed.ON)
Ed.RegisterEventHandler(Ed.EVENT_OBSTACLE_AHEAD, "avoidObstacle")



Ed.Drive(Ed.FORWARD, Ed.SPEED_5, Ed.DISTANCE_UNLIMITED)
while True:
    pass

def avoidObstacle():
    Ed.Drive(Ed.SPIN_RIGHT,Ed.SPEED_5,180)
    Ed.Drive(Ed.FORWARD, Ed.SPEED_5, 10)

You can download the code from here

This program uses Python Event Handling. In event handling, certain events, such as an obstacle being detected, are registered with the program along with an associated function and then when these events occur the associated functions are called. The associated functions are called event handlers and they act as an interrupt, which means when the event occurs, the main program is paused while the given function is run.

In our example above, the obstacle-detected-ahead event is registered in line 13 using RegisterEventHandler. The first parameter is the event that is going to occur and the second parameter is the function that will be called when the event occurs. Thus, when an obstacle is detected ahead the avoidObstacle function will be called.

Describe what the robot does.