Flappy Bird Automation Game

This repository contains the Flappy Bird game modified to be controlled with ROS.

Game Description

Flappy Bird is in trouble again! This time it went into space and landed in an asteroid belt. If Flappy Bird collides with the asteroids it would be fatal. Luckily Flappy remembered his laser scanner that provides distance measurements. It will give you its velocity and the laserscans in return for an acceleration input. Flappy Bird only asks for 60 seconds of your guidance. Help Flappy Bird go through as many asteroid lines as possible before the time runs out!

Getting Started

This game has been tested with Ubuntu 16.04 running ROS Kinetic and Python 2.7.

There are two recommended options for running the game. Either download the VirtualBox image that comes with a complete Ubuntu 16.04 setup or add the packages provided from this repository to your own ROS workspace.

Option 1 - VirtualBox

First download VirtualBox from here [VirtualBox link] and install it on your system. Then download the Ubuntu image that we have preconfigured with ROS and the game from here [Image link]. Once downloaded add the image to VirtualBox and boot up Ubuntu. The username and password are both FlyaTest .
Be sure to pull the latest version of the code from github before you begin!

Option 2 - Adding as ROS package

If you already have Ubuntu you can install ROS and setup a workspace as covered here [ROS install guide].
To add the automation game to your workspace clone the automation game repository to the source folder.

If you followed the ROS installation tutorial it will look like this,

cd ~/catkin_ws/src/

Clone the automation game,

git clone https://github.com/JohsBL/flappy_automation_test.git

Make sure you have Pygame installed,

sudo apt-get install python-pygame

Then run the catkin_make command

cd ~/catkin_ws/
catkin_make

Run The Game

To run the game we use the roslaunch command. There are two ROS launch files depending on if you want to run the game with C++ or python automation code (whatever you prefer).

For python open a terminal and run,

roslaunch flappy_automation_code flappy_automation_code_py.launch

For C++ open a terminal and run,

roslaunch flappy_automation_code flappy_automation_code_cpp.launch

A GUI will become visible with the game start screen. For now the automation code does not do anything other than printing out some laser ray information. To start the game and move the bird press the arrow keys. Tapping the up key ↑ will start the game. You can then add velocity in a wanted direction by pressing the arrow keys ←↑↓→. Notice that it is not possible to go backwards and if hitting an obstacle the game stops.

Automate Flappy Bird

Now that we have gotten familiar with the game we want to control Flappy Bird. To do this a python and C++ template has been provided.

Modifying the code

The templates are located in the flappy_automation_code folder. Be aware that you are not meant to change the files in flappy_main_game.

For using python modify the file flappy_automation_code_node.py in the scripts folder.

For using C++ modify the files flappy_automation_code.cpp in the src folder and flappy_automation_code.hpp in the include folder.

Take your pick.

To get the state of the bird velocity readings and laserscans are published and an acceleration command can be given for actuating the Flappy Bird. Callbacks for these topics and examples of how to read the returned messages is provided in the code.

Build and run

Once the code has been modified run the catkin_make command again,

cd ~/catkin_ws/
catkin_make

Then launch the game as before.

For Python,

roslaunch flappy_automation_code flappy_automation_code_py.launch

For C++,

roslaunch flappy_automation_code flappy_automation_code_cpp.launch

Handing In

To hand in the game solution please send the relevant files (the ones you changed) in a ZIP file by email.

Other Information

I hope you will have fun solving this little game. If you have any questions or need other game information either write me or look around in the flappy_main_game folder. Here is some other helpful information for solving the task.

Scaling: 1 pixel = 0.01 meter
Game and sensor update rates: 30 fps
The velocity measurement is noise free
Max acceleration x: 3.0 m/s^2
Max acceleration y: 35.0 m/s^2
Axis convention: x →, y ↑
LaserScan message definition

Value	Unit	Topic
Velocity	m/s	/flappy_vel
Acceleration	m/s^2	/flappy_acc
LaserScan	Radians, meters	/flappy_laser_scan