sbot
sbot - SourceBots Robot API
This is the API for Southampton Robotics Outreach robotics competitions.
Installation
If you wish to install openCV from your package manager, you can install the base package with:
pip install sbot
To install the full package, including openCV, you can install with:
pip install sbot[vision]
Usage
Importing the module will, by default, trigger board discovery and wait for the start button to be pressed.
import sbot
Unlike previous versions, robot functionality is accessed directly from the sbot library instead of instantiating a class.
from sbot import *
motors.set_power(0, 0.3)
motors.set_power(1, 0.3)
power.get_output_current(PowerOutputPosition.H0)
utils.sound_buzzer(880, 0.5)
servos.set_position(0, 45/90)
print(arduino.measure_ultrasound_distance(8, 9))
if comp.is_competition:
markers = vision.detect_markers()
leds.set_colour(0, Colour.MAGENTA)
Startup behaviour
You can configure the startup behaviour of sbot with an override.env file in the same directory as your project.
Example override.env file:
ENABLE_DEBUG_LOGGING=1
SKIP_WAIT_START=1
NO_POWERBOARD=1
If SKIP_WAIT_START is set, you will have to manually trigger board discovery and wait for the start button:
from sbot import utils
utils.load_boards()
utils.wait_start()
The currently supported override keys are:
| Override | Description |
|---|---|
| ENABLE_DEBUG_LOGGING | Enable debug logging |
| ENABLE_TRACE_LOGGING | Enable trace level logging |
| SKIP_WAIT_START | Don't block for the start signal automatically |
| NO_POWERBOARD | Allow running without a power board |
| MANUAL_POWER_PORTS | Specify additional serial ports for power boards |
| MANUAL_MOTOR_PORTS | Specify additional serial ports for motor boards |
| MANUAL_SERVO_PORTS | Specify additional serial ports for servo boards |
| MANUAL_ARDUINO_PORTS | Specify additional serial ports for arduino boards |
| MANUAL_LED_PORTS | Specify additional serial ports for led boards, only used in the simulator |
| MANUAL_TIME_PORTS | Specify additional serial ports for the time interface, only used in the simulator |
| SORT_POWER_ORDER | Override the sort order of the power boards, unused |
| SORT_MOTOR_ORDER | Override the sort order of the motor boards |
| SORT_SERVO_ORDER | Override the sort order of the servo boards |
| SORT_ARDUINO_ORDER | Override the sort order of the arduino boards, unused |
| SORT_LED_ORDER | Override the sort order of the led boards, unused |
| SORT_TIME_ORDER | Override the sort order of the time interface, unused |
You can also configure these settings as environment variables, by prepending the prefix SBOT_. For example, ENABLE_DEBUG_LOGGING can be set as SBOT_ENABLE_DEBUG_LOGGING.
Some settings can only be configured as environment variables. These are:
| Environment Variable | Description |
|---|---|
| OPENCV_CALIBRATIONS | Override the location to look for additional camera calibrations, defaults to the working directory |
| SBOT_METADATA_PATH | Override the location to look for metadata files, normally configured by the runner |
| SBOT_PYTEST | Set to 1 when running unit tests, to disable automatic discovery on import |
| SBOT_MQTT_URL | The URI to use for the MQTT broker, normally configured by the runner |
| run_uuid | The UUID to include in all MQTT messages, normally configured by the runner |
| WEBOTS_SIMULATOR | Set to 1 when running in the Webots simulator, used to detect the simulator environment |
| WEBOTS_ROBOT | List of socket URIs to connect to for the simulated boards, configured by the runner |
| WEBOTS_DEVICE_LOGGING | Set to the log level name to use for logging of the simulated boards, defaults to WARNING |
Developer Notes
There are a number of considerations that have been made in the design of this API. Some of these may not be immediately obvious, so they are documented below.
tupleis used to prevent the user from adding, removing or overwriting items in any parts of the API that would return a list.__slots__is used to prevent the user from adding, removing or overwriting attributes in any parts of the API.sbot.serial_wrapper.SerialWrapperhandles automatic reconnection to the serial port if the connection is lost and impleents 3 retries on any serial operation before raising aBoardDisconnectionError.- The old API is still available under
sbot.historic, though this might change.
3 maintainers
Release files for sbot 2026.1.0
For a detailed explanation of source distributions (sdists) and built distributions (wheels), please see the package formats documentation.
Source distribution (sdist)
| File | Size | Uploaded | |
|---|---|---|---|
| sbot-2026.1.0.tar.gz | 69.7 kB | Details |
Built distribution (wheel)
| File | Interpreter | ABI | Platform | Reset |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| sbot-2026.1.0-py3-none-any.whl | Python 3 | none | any | Details |
Total release size: 142.2 kB
Release files / sbot-2026.1.0.tar.gz
| Download URL | sbot-2026.1.0.tar.gz |
|---|---|
| Size | 69.7 kB |
| Tags | Source |
|
SHA-256 checksum How to use checksums |
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| Download URL | sbot-2026.1.0-py3-none-any.whl |
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| Size | 72.5 kB |
| Tags | Python 3 |
|
SHA-256 checksum How to use checksums |
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Uploaded using Trusted Publishing? What is trusted publishing? |
Yes |
| Uploaded via |
twine/7.0.0 CPython/3.13.14
|
Provenance
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PyPI verified that this artifact, at this checksum, originated from the publisher listed below.
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