Visit the following website and donwload CupCarbon:
www.cupcarbon.com
You unzip the file cupcarbon.zip
You will get the following files:
You need just to execute the jar file cupcarbon.jar
If CupCarbon starts, then you are lucky, you can continue to use it normally
Otherwise, it means you have a recent version of Java
CupCarbon works only with the version 8 (1.8.xxx). Since we are using JavaFX platform, CupCarbon can run only with the Java 8 version.
Therefore, you may install the version 8 (JRE 1.8) of java in your system
To do that, visit the following web page: (www.java.com). Verify that you are installing the version 8.
Once done, you can double click again on the file cupcarbon.jar and start using CupCarbon normally.
If CupCarbon does not start then you may check the version of java installed in your system, you can use the following command:
java -version
Verify that the version is 1.8.xxx
In case where the version is not 8 then depending on your system you should either change the current default version to 8 or to install the jre directly from the website of oracle:
https://www.oracle.com/java/technologies/downloads/#java8-mac
Go to the section: Java SE Development Kit 8u391
Choose your platform and download the installer.
Once Java installed run CupCarbon using the java command:
java -jar cupcarbon.jar
If it does not work, then run CupCarbon using the complete path of Java. For example, for mac OS, go to the directory where the cupcarbon.jar is situated and write the following command:
/Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/jdk1.8xx.jdk/Contents/Home/bin/java -jar cupcarbon.jar
jdk1.8xx can be any version starting with 1.8.
You can install any version of Python you want.
To verify if Python is installed you can use the following command:
python -V
Python is completely independent from CupCarbon, once installed, you have to use the system command used to execute Python programs.
Basically this command can by python or python3
python
It can be a complete path where the command is situated in your system. You can add this commande (or path) in the Executor Path Configuration window as shown by the following figures:
Now you can use CupCarbon, enjoy!
To interace with CupCarbon from your Python codes, you can send commands to CupCarbon and you can get commands from CupCarbon as well.
To send commands from your code Python to CupCarbon, use the command print of Python normally. The message of the print will be considered as a CupCarbon command. You need to flush each command to send it directly, otherwise, all the commands will be sent once at the end of the program. In this case you have to use the command:
sys.stdout.flush() after each print command
To use this command you need to import the library sys, as follows:
import sys
In a nutshell:
Any Python program communicating with CupCarbon has to import the library sys, to send the CupCarbon comands using the command print and to flush the message (send it to CupCarbon) using the command flush:
print("CupCarbon command", flush=True)
The different commands that you can send to CupCarbon are given as follows:
1. print
To print any message on the executing device, use the command print as follows:
print("print Hellow World!", flush=True)
2. mark/unmark
To mark or unmark the executing device, use the commande mark or unmark as follows:
print("mark", flush=True)
print("unmark", flush=True)
3. move
To move the executing device to a given GPS location, use the move command as follows:
print("move 50.002 21.344", flush=True)
4. To get any information about the executing device sugh as, its id, its name and its location, use the following commands:
print("getid", flush=True)
id = input()
print("getname", flush=True)
name = input()
print("getxy", flush=True)
location = input()
print("getx", flush=True)
x = input()
print("gety", flush=True)
y = input()
To create IoT Projects using the MQTT protocol, just install MQTT for Python.
You can use the following command:
pip install paho-mqtt
or
pip3 install paho-mqtt
Many tutorials exists on the web. We suggest the following websites
https://pypi.org/project/paho-mqtt/
https://www.emqx.com/en/blog/how-to-use-mqtt-in-python
It is possible to use MQTT in different real devices (Android device, iOS, ESP32, Raspberry, ...) to communicate with CupCarbon devices.
You can install Mosquitto to use MQTT from the terminal of your system.
https://mosquitto.org/download/
Two samples (Pbulisher and Subscriber) are given in CupCarbon that can be used directly. Don't forget to set the value of the broker and the topics if you are using these codes.