These instructions are written for ARO labs regarding set up on DICE environment.

The lab instructions are given in the instructions notebook. This readme provides you with the instructions for installing the lab requirements. These instructions assume that you have already run the tutorials instructions. Note that the lab includes an additional dependency to the pybullet package.

On DICE, we will clone the lab repository and install the required dependencies. You can "clone" the project to a local folder of your choice. Open a terminal (CTRL + ALT + T) and follow the commands below:

• Move to home directory.

cd ~

• Create the aro directory if not already done

mkdir -p aro && cd aro

• Clone the lab inside your home directory and cd into the folder

git clone https://github.com/ediadvancedrobotics/lab/ && cd lab

• Install dependencies

cd lab
conda env update -f environment.yml
conda activate aro2026

Activating the environment also puts meshcat-server on PATH; no .bashrc edits are needed.

You should be done! See below to check that your installation is working

On a Linux system with Python 3.11 and PyBullet already installed (for example via the Conda setup above), install the remaining dependencies with +pip (see installation procedure and update below):

python3 -m pip install -r requirements.txt

Once you have the dependencies, you can start the server with jupyter notebook .

You must create a local fork of the repository on your github account to be able to save and commit your changes to the project.

On your terminal, cd into the lab folder:

cd  ~/aro/lab/

Now run Jupyter notebook with the command

jupyter notebook .

Click on 'instructions.ipynb ' to open the instructions notebook.

There is a pinocchio cheat sheet available as a pdf. You can also run the notebook "A_pinocchio_cheat_notebook.ipynb" to get a summary of the instructions. Pinocchio is a bit dense and has its own singular API, it might take some time for you to become familiar with it, but trust me, this will prove largely beneficial.

If the repository changes (for example if a bug has been found and corrected by the ARO staff), you will need to update your local version by "pulling" it from the repository. On a native installation, just go in the folder containing the lab and execute git pull

Pip is a tool for installing and managing Python packages. You can install it with

sudo apt install python3-pip

The default version of +pip installed by +apt is not up to date, so upgrade it with

python3 -m pip install --upgrade --user

In general, running +pip is likely to run an alias on +pip in /usr, so either run it through python3 as explained above, or make sure your path select the right pip executable in your ~/.local. The option --user is kind of optional for recent +pip version, but removing it should work with a warning.