OARS Boat Monitor

When launching an autonomous sailboat out into the ocean, it is critical to maintain contact with that boat as it ventures across the formidable seas. The OARS boat dashboard allows us and the rest of the world to keep tabs on our boat, checking its health and plans and altering settings when necessary.

Architecture

There are two components to this project:

Backend Server

The boat communicates with a telemetry server running Node.js. It reports its whereabouts, its thoughts, and the current environmental conditions as measured by the boat. This server then stores the data in a MongoDB database and provides it via a WebSockets API to clients running the web app.

Frontend Web App

All of the information collected is displayed using a React web app. It enables viewing the boat's status as well as sending it commands, if properly authenticated.

Setting up a Dev Environment

Getting the code up and running on your computer is easy! Just follow the steps below.

Clone This Repo

You first need to clone the code from this repository to your computer. To do that, run the following:

git clone https://github.com/olin-robotic-sailing/trans-atlantic-sailboat.git
cd trans-atlantic-sailboat

Install Node.js

Then you'll need to install Node.js and a package manager (yarn).

On Ubuntu

curl -o- https://raw.githubusercontent.com/creationix/nvm/v0.33.0/install.sh | bash
nvm install node
nvm use node
curl -sS https://dl.yarnpkg.com/debian/pubkey.gpg | sudo apt-key add -
echo "deb https://dl.yarnpkg.com/debian/ stable main" | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/yarn.list
sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install yarn

On macOS

On macOS running Homebrew, you can install both Node.js and yarn by running brew install yarn.

Install the Dependencies

Once you have Node installed, you can use yarn to install all the necessary packages (read from package.json).

yarn install

Note: You must be in the trans-atlantic-sailboat folder when running the above command.

Starting the Server

To start a local instance of the server, simply run the following in Terminal:

yarn run server

Starting the Web App

In another Terminal, run

yarn run dev

The web app should now be available at localhost:8080. The site will automatically refresh to reflect any changes you make to files.