bbr-buttonboard

Python client for the BBR Button Board, a modular driver station panel for FIRST robotics.

The board works as a game controller with nothing installed. This library is for making the panel react to the robot: a short script on the Driver Station laptop reads robot state (from NetworkTables, in FRC) and sets key colours, display text and pictures to match.

Install

pip install bbr-buttonboard

Python 3.9 or newer. The only dependency is pyserial. Two extras:

pip install "bbr-buttonboard[pictures]"       # Pillow, to load images onto display tiles
pip install "bbr-buttonboard[networktables]"  # pyntcore, for the companion app

A first script

from buttonboard import Board

with Board.open() as board:          # finds the port by itself
    leds = board.led_layer()

    while True:
        arm_fault = read_from_networktables("arm_fault")
        in_range = read_from_networktables("in_scoring_range")

        leds.set(3, "red" if arm_fault else "off")
        leds.set(7, "green" if in_range else "off", fx="breathe")
        leds.flush()                 # sends only what changed

Display tiles take text the same way:

board.screen(5).text(0, "ABORT", fg="black", bg="red").flush()

MockBoard is an in-process board, so a script can be written and tested with no hardware attached:

from buttonboard import MockBoard

board = MockBoard()
board.led(3, "red")
print(board.state.leds)              # {('btn', 3): 'led 3 FF0000'}

Only one program can have the board open at a time. Close the config app's browser tab before running a script, and the other way round.

bbctl

Installing the package also installs bbctl, a console for the board's config channel:

bbctl                       # interactive
bbctl hello stats           # run commands and exit
bbctl -p COM7 "led reset"   # explicit port

Documentation

• Install and first script
• API summary
• Config channel commands

Tests

python tests/test_buttonboard.py

No hardware and no pytest needed.

About this repository

This is a published copy of the library. It is developed alongside the Button Board firmware and exported here for each release, so a pull request is welcome but will be applied upstream and come back in the next export.

The § references in the source point into the Button Board protocol specification, which is not published yet.

Licence

MIT. See LICENSE.