Create ROS 2 Training Material

[Levi-Armstrong]

This issues is to open discussion related to creating ROS 2 training material.

[Briancbn]

@Levi-Armstrong from ROS-I AP. It seems that there aren't a lot of discussion or activities here at the moment. I have several questions and suggestions regarding the ROS 2 training material.

• Eloquent looks good for the development at the moment, but will EOL this Nov. A lot of the eloquent features and interfaces like launch_xml, rviz markers, etc. are not available in Dashing. Foxy should be the better choice once it's out, hopefully mid June.
• Basic training materials from 1.0 - 3.2, 6.1, 6.2, seem ready for porting.
• The others related to Moveit needs to wait for Moveit2 to be ready. The current Moveit2 Beta doesn't have move_group_interface yet, although mostly functional, so I think these should be after Moveit2 Foxy.
• I am not clear on the plan for Descartes yet. Will it be port to ROS2 or it will be part of Moveit2 future milestone in its Development Roadmap.
• A list ROS2 features that needs tutorials here, like lifecycle_node, qos, composition etc..
• Can we also track the porting process either here or somewhere else?

[cardboardcode]

As of this writing, here is an updated response to the questions @Briancbn have,

Questions

• Eloquent looks good for the development at the moment, but will EOL this Nov. A lot of the eloquent features and interfaces like launch_xml, rviz markers, etc. are not available in Dashing. Foxy should be the better choice once it's out, hopefully mid June.

• Basic training materials from 1.0 - 3.2, 6.1, 6.2, seem ready for porting.

• The others related to Moveit needs to wait for Moveit2 to be ready. The current Moveit2 Beta doesn't have move_group_interface yet, although mostly functional, so I think these should be after Moveit2 Foxy.

• I am not clear on the plan for Descartes yet. Will it be port to ROS2 or it will be part of Moveit2 future milestone in its Development Roadmap.

• A list ROS2 features that needs tutorials here, like lifecycle_node, qos, composition etc..

• Can we also track the porting process either here or somewhere else?

Responses

1. There is now a ROS2 Foxy port of the documentation. Please access it via this link.

2. Based on the current ROS2 Foxy port, here is quick overview of the exercises/sections that was mentioned in the question.
   Exercise 1.0, ROS Setup - Done.
   Exercise 1.1, Creating Workspace - Done.
   Exercise 1.2, Installing Packages - Done.
   Exercise 1.3, Packages and Nodes - Done.
   Exercise 1.4, Topics and Messages - Done.
   Exercise 2.0, Services - Done.
   Exercise 2.1, Actions - Outsourced to ROS2 general tutorials.
   Exercise 2.2, Launch Files - Done.
   Exercise 2.3, Parameters - Done.
   Exercise 3.0, Intro to URDF - Done.
   Exercise 3.1, Workcell XACRO - Done.
   Exercise 3.2, Services - Done.
   Exercise 6.1, Unit Testing - Incomplete. Still uses catkin.
   Exercise 6.2, Using rqt toosl for analysis - Incomplete. Still uses ROS1 roslaunch.

3. MoveIt2 has been ported to ROS2 Foxy. Please access it via this link. It now has move_group_interface.

4. As of this writing, DeCartes-related exercises in the Training Material have not been properly ported with them still using catkin. There are also no ongoing online discussions that I can find on porting Decartes to ROS2 as well.

5. Training Materials for lifecycle_node, QOS and composition have not been created. For now, ROS2 users can learn more about them through the general ROS2 docs. Access them via the links below.

lifecycle_node
QOS
composition

6. @Levi-Armstrong At the moment, with your permission, can we track the porting process here? Do let us know if there are other preferred threads ROS-Industrial Consortium America already has so as not to duplicate porting efforts.

[cardboardcode]

@jdlangs @JeremyZoss
Thank you for ROS2 porting efforts thus far.

Do let us know the current state of the ROS2 porting here. Our team at ROS-Industrial Consortium Asia Pacific would like to help out as well, without unnecessarily duplicating porting works that has already done internally on your side.