The documentation for this project is being put together now and will be updated freqently over the coming weeks.
There is a Google Groups Q&A forum here, or email

laika-users@googlegroups.com

Laika Installation
==================

As this is the first release of the Laika software the installation process is a bit more manual
than you may be use to. Don't worry, it should be quite straightforward. We are working hard to bring you a single installation package but for now, just follow these steps:

If you are new to the Pi, the best way to get started is to follow this guide.
At this stage, this software has only been tested on Raspbian.
Log into your pi: default user: pi password: raspberry

First Install LIBFTDI:
=====================

I recommend updating your system using the following two commands (it make take some time):

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get upgrade

Now install libftdi-dev (it is a USB driver)

sudo apt-get install libftdi-dev

Install Laika
=============

Change to your user directory

cd ~ (this directory is /home/pi as standard: cd /home/pi is an alternative in this case )

Create a directory to keep things neat

mkdir laika

Change to this new directory

cd laika

Now download the Laika software

wget --no-check-certificate https://github.com/eightdog/laika/archive/2.0.0.tar.gz

Now decompress the archive

tar -xzf 2.0.0.tar.gz

We need to run the build script so change directory

cd laika-2.0.0/build

And make the build scipt executable

chmod a+x build.sh

Now run the build script

./build.sh

Then test by browsing to laika-2.0.0/source/examples/py_test from your home directory.

cd  ../source/examples/py_test

plug in and power on your Explorer and type:

python example_1.py

This should run the LED's to verify a connection. You can go on to try the other examples and also load the Scratch examples.

To Run Scratch
==============

Start the desktop environment by typing the following on the command-line:

startx

You will notice a laika-scratch link on the Desktop which starts Scratch with Laika running in the background.

If you click this link and it throws an error message as it might on the first attempt after install, simply reboot.