MORSE quickstartΒΆ
Creating your first simulation with MORSE is easy.
First, the boring part:
- Install MORSE
- Open a terminal and check everything is well configured
$ morse check
Then, the funny part:
$ morse create mysim
$ morse run mysim
This should be enough to launch MORSE and display a sample simulation. You can already control the robot with the arrow keys and check collisions with surrounding objects. Press h to display the list of keyboard shortcuts.
So, what happened here?
morse create mysim actually created a new subfolder in the current directory.
If you inspect it, you will find a Python file called default.py and two folders. default.py is what we call a Builder script (because it uses MORSE’s Builder API) and it describes your simulation.
Note
Note that the script is still Python: besides the Builder API, you can use any standard Python constructs to program your simulation.
Open default.py in your favorite text editor. There are plenty of comments and it should be mostly self-explanatory: it builds a simulation with one robot, called Morsy, two actuators (including the keyboard for debugging/testing), one sensor, and these simulated components talk to the outside world via a socket.
By checking the component library, you get a first glimpse on what standard robots, actuators and sensors are available out of the box. You can add new elements to your simulation by directly editing default.py.
Note
All simulations in MORSE are (by default) self-contained. This means that you can share your simulation folder (zipping it, sharing with GIT, etc.) with others, they can import it with morse import <path> (only required the first time), and then run it exactly as you did. Convenient to work on a shared project.
What if you want to create a custom robot or a custom actuator/sensor?
$ morse add robot MyCustomRobot mysim
This will create a template for your robot. Open the robot description as hinted on the output. You will see that by default, your custom robot has the same two actuators and sensor as in default.py. You can change them to build a robot that match your need.
Check as well morse add actuator and morse add sensor if you need to create custom actuators/sensors.
That’s all folks! You now know the basics of MORSE. Head to the Tutorials section to learn how to interact with your simulated robots and for more advanced examples.
