Robots and Physical Computing

Using Elecfreaks microbit Smart home kit  http://bit.ly/43ooJF o a cool set of comments to build simulated Smart Building activities using a Microbit it works with either V1 or V2. Start https://makecode.microbit.org/#editor Go to extensions (see below) and then search for smarthome and add the package to the editor (ie, click on the extension and makecode does the rest) Attach the microbit to the sensorbit Making the voice activated light solution - the first activity follow the circuit in the book To get "led enable" you will need to click in makecode like on LED option and then + to find it. You will also need to set up three variables light, strip and noise. Here is the code Only turns on the LED for 10 seconds when the light level is low and noise is above 78dB. Playtime Slight adaptation to the code, makes the LED change with sound level The circuit is the same. Conclusion Based on this one activity it is a nice bit of kit. The range of actuators and sensors justifies t...

Question: How easy is it produce a comic/cartoon using genetative AI? Let's start with  using ChatGPT4o to produce cartoons. The idea was inspired by a tweet by Dr Thomas Lancaster see below First, use a simple prompt to prime the system and generate the main panels. ChatGPT can now generate multiple images in a row. I asked for 8 panels. (2/6)  pic.twitter.com/wqz2DyAUFe — Thomas Lancaster (@DrLancaster)  June 17, 2024 Slightly modifying the prompts it is possible to get it to create the images and combine them in a GIF. I have split the two task into two prompts  The first prompt applies some principles of prompt engineering Persona: In this case two the persona of the writer " You are an experienced comic book designer and a witty writer " and who it is for " Computing student in Higher Education in the UK " Task: Creating a guide that educational and entertaining, but with minimal textual output. Action: The details a comic with 8 panels of consistent style,...

In an earlier post  https://robotsandphysicalcomputing.blogspot.com/2024/08/microbit-v1-datalogging.html  a single microbit was used to log data. The main problem with this is often we want to sense things that are away from the computer ie remotely (though only a short distance away). The previous solution was attached to the computer to work. So one solution (and closer to solutions used in the 'real-world' is to separate the sensing part and receiving and processing into two different devices. So in this case two micro bits; one collecting and sending data, and the other receiving and transferring the data to the computer.   How? So to play with this, we are going to extend our previous solution  https://robotsandphysicalcomputing.blogspot.com/2024/08/microbit-v1-datalogging.html  to be a remote monitoring system; and the easiest way to get started is with  a solution that already exists and adapt it . So we going to use the solution found in  https...

Often we need applications that allow collection of data over time, for example temperature or light levels through the day. Allowing us potentially analyse the data for trends. The microbit is a fantastic tool, with some of these sensors already in place (e.g. light and temperature) or can be added to with extra sensors from add-on boards (such as Kitronik Air Quality and Environmental Board for micro:bit https://shop.pimoroni.com/products/kitronik-air-quality-and-environmental-board-for-micro-bit?variant=39475687227475 )   Datalogging with a V2 microbit is relatively easy all the details are available here: https://microbit.org/get-started/user-guide/data-logging/ to get started.   But what about the older V1 can it do it?   The answer is yes but it is a little more work and is generally a little more limited but still very worth while. In this post we are going to look at doing this.   In Figure 1 starting the process off in MakeCode ( https://ma...

The Top 10 viewed post on this blog in March 2024. Covering areas such as small robots, augmented reality, Scratch programming, robots. Microbit Remote Control CBiS Car I wanted to contol the CBiS micro:Bit Car via gestures whilst holding another micro:Bit (see Figure 1) I went for: - Button A in combinat... Escape the Maze with a VR robot - Vex VR You don't need to buy a robot to get programming a robot, now there are a range of free and relatively simple to start with robot simula... Programming Anki's Vector robot With the sad news that Anki is shutting down ( https://www.vox.com/2019/4/29/18522966/anki-robot-cozmo-staff-layoffs-robotics-toys-boris-sof... Easy, Free and Quick Augmented Reality (AR) - AR.js Studio - Marker based For a few years, I have been a fan of Aframe and AR.js - these are fantastic tools for creating web-based Virtual and Augmented Reality.  No... Speech Recognition in Scratch 3 - turning Hello into Bonjour! The Raspberry Pi Foundation recently re...