I’ve been working on the robot controller over the past few days, mostly on the software, but added a snazzy new wallpaper too.

I’ve been trying to get ROS Noetic installed on it without any luck, I tried a few different distributions and hit different errors each time.  The penny finally dropped when I tried to install Ubuntu Mate, “CPU 0 is not supported”.

It turns out what I thought was a Raspberry Pi 3+ was a Raspberry Pi 3, a subtle but very important difference as it uses a different CPU entirely!

I’ve switched over to a ridiculously overpowered Raspberry Pi 4 for now, it runs a 64bit ARM processor which ROS will install on fine, and it’ll do for now.

I also installed the PiJuice HAT for the Pi, it has a battery onboard and software that lets you monitor the charge level.  It’s much tidier than the DIY option I was going to go with and has a real time clock built in too.

One slight issue with this HAT is that I didn’t design for it and the case lid can’t be refitted.  The whole controller needs another look design-wise anyhow so I’ll factor it in with the rebuild.