Getting Started

This is the software for Viator, Trickfire Robotics' rover for the University Rover Challenge, built on ROS 2 Humble.

Prerequisites

• Docker
• Visual Studio Code with the Dev Containers extension

Development happens inside a Docker container so every contributor gets the same ROS 2 Humble environment, regardless of host OS.

Set up the dev container

1. Clone the repo (with submodules):

   $ git clone --recurse-submodules https://github.com/TrickfireRobotics/viator.git

2. Open the folder in VS Code and choose Reopen in Container when prompted (or run Dev Containers: Reopen in Container from the command palette). This uses .devcontainer/docker-compose.yml to build .devcontainer/Dockerfile (which installs ROS 2 Humble, the CAN/motor tooling, and the myactuator_rmd library) and starts it as a container named viator, so it's easy to find with docker ps.

Build and launch

All common actions are exposed as make targets from the repo root — see Launching the Rover for the full workflow. The short version, from inside the container:

$ make build   # colcon build --symlink-install
$ make launch  # ros2 launch viator_launch robot.launch.py

Formatting and linting

Python is formatted/linted with Ruff and type-checked with mypy; shell scripts are formatted with shfmt. Install the recommended VS Code extensions when prompted, or run everything manually:

$ make format

Run make hooks once after cloning to install the pre-commit hooks that enforce this automatically at commit time.

Where to go next

• Architecture — what each ROS package does and how they fit together.
• Launching the Rover — the full build → CAN setup → launch workflow, including deploying to the onboard Orin.