Software

System Data Flow

Explorator Electron + Vue 3

Human workstation · Telemetry display · Audio & video feeds · Manual controls · PID tuning

TCP / WebSocket · LAN / WiFi

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Cogitator Python · Jetson Orin Nano

Vision service (OAK-D Pro W) · LLM processing (planned) · Telemetry relay · WebSocket gateway

1 MBPS Serial

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Instinctus Teensy 4.1

ARM Cortex-M7 · 600 MHz

Sensor reads · Serial bridge · PID balance loop · ODrive CAN commands

CAN Bus

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ODrive S1

Left Motor

ODrive S1

Right Motor

01 Instinctus

github.com/fungus-wine/calvin_instinctus

Single-Core Architecture

The Teensy 4.1's ARM Cortex-M7 runs at 600 MHz and handles all Instinctus tasks on a single core — sensor reads, serial comms, the PID balance loop, and CAN bus motor commands.

Reads ICM-20948 IMU via SPI
Reads VL53L4CX ToF sensors on a I2C bus
Receives commands from Cogitator over serial
Runs PID controller (1 kHz target loop rate)
Sends velocity setpoints to ODrive S1 over CAN
Forwards telemetry back to Cogitator

Key Details

Board	Teensy 4.1
Core	ARM Cortex-M7 · 600 MHz
Framework	Arduino / Teensyduino
CAN	FlexCAN · 250 kbps
Loop rate	1 kHz target

03 Cogitator

github.com/fungus-wine/calvin_cogitator

Planned Python Services

Cogitator is architected as a set of independent Python services coordinated by a ZeroMQ message bus and broker.

serial_service

Serial link to Instinctus — reads telemetry, writes commands
vision_service

OAK-D Pro W depth perception, object detection via DepthAI
video_service

Streaming video from OAK-D Pro W
hearing_service

Audio location and processing with ReSpeaker 3.0
audio_service

Audio streaming from ReSpeaker 3.0
gateway_service

WebSocket server — exposes telemetry and commands to Explorator

Runtime Environment

Platform	Jetson Orin Nano · JetPack 6.2
Language	Python 3
Vision SDK	DepthAI / depthai-python

04 Explorator

github.com/fungus-wine/calvin_explorator

Electron + Vue 3

Explorator is a cross-platform desktop application built with Electron and Vue 3. It connects to Cogitator's WebSocket API over LAN to provide live telemetry and manual control.

Real-time telemetry dashboard
Live camera and audio feeds from Cogitator
Manual text commands
PID tuning interface
Hardware Diagnostics view
Data Logger

Tech Stack

Shell	Electron (Node.js)
UI Framework	Vue 3 + Vite
Styling	Tailwind CSS
Networking	WebSocket client

05 Tooling

Calvin's firmware development relies on two purpose-built tools that replace the standard Arduino IDE workflow with a simple, scriptable CLI wrapper paired with a graphical companion app. Servitor depends on grot — it shells out to grot build and grot load under the hood.

grot

Ruby gem

A friendly CLI wrapper around arduino-cli and teensy_loader_cli. Reads a per-project .grotconfig TOML file for board FQBN, port, and sketch path, then exposes memorable sub-commands for the most common development loops. For example:

grot build

Compile the sketch via arduino-cli with config-driven settings
grot load

Upload the compiled binary to the connected board

Servitor

Electron / Vue 3

A cross-platform desktop app that consolidates the Arduino development loop into a single window — project dashboard, serial monitor, and live data plotter — with one-click build and upload backed by grot.