Your first Internet High 5 with the uArm Swift!

Posted on May 12, 2017 by Noon van der Silk

So the wait is finally over! The Internet High 5 Machine website is finally live!

Currently you can send a High 5 to anyone via their email address. You get the option of writing a short message, and recording a short GIF. They can then receive this High 5 by clicking the link in the email!

That’s pretty cool.

But, the Internet High 5 Machine is also about physical interaction with an attached device, and to that end we have added support for the uArm Swift.

I picked up one of these in their recent IndieGoGo campaign, and I quickly built an elegant High 5’ing extension:

Then, by playing around with one of the open-source libraries that they provided, I was able to get it to give me a High 5:

Now, if you’re willing to get down and funky with some code, you too can connect your uarm to the Internet High 5 Machine website!

Technical - Setup of uArm Swift with the High 5 Machine Website

Below we list a somewhat-involved process to connect the uArm to the High 5 website. This process will hopefully get simplier in the coming months as the uFactory company releases updated versions of it’s code and we release more of the High 5 Machine software.

Firstly, we need to get the program that can perform a High 5.

  1. Clone uArm-5
> git clone https://github.com/internet-high-five-machine/uArm-5.git
  1. Create, and activate, a conda environment (or otherwise use python 3.5) and install the the requirements
> cd uArm-5
uArm-5> conda create -n uArm-5 python=3.5
  1. Install the requirements, which is a fork of the official pyuarm library:
uArm-5> pip install -r requirements.txt
  1. Clone the high5-driver program, which is used to communicate directly with the High 5 website.
> git clone https://github.com/internet-high-five-machine/high5-driver.git

  1. Install stack

  2. Setup stack to build this project

high5-dirver> stack setup
  1. Build the high5-driver project
high5-dirver> stack build
  1. Point the settings.yaml file at the uarm-5.py executable.
high5-driver> cat settings.yaml
exec:
    machine-command      : ["../uArm-5/uarm-5.py"]
  1. Run the high5-driver (note: you should be in the conda envirnoment you created earlier, because it will run the python script):
high5-dirver> stack exec -- high5-driver
  1. Send the configure command to the driver, so that it connects to the High 5 website. You’ll find the token on your profile page:
configure {"server": "high5.cool", "url": "/", "email": "[email protected]", "token":"your-token-goes-here"}

You’ll know this worked if it says websocket connected.

  1. Bask in the joy of receiving Internet High 5s!

Once you’ve done the above steps, when you go to receive a High 5 on the website, you will see the “Receive High 5!” button under the “Via your device” option become available.

Enjoy!