Robots and Physical Computing

I have been having a first play with a SPOKE capacitive touch controller board. At the time of writing, it is available from Pimoroni at: https://shop.pimoroni.com/products/spoke-capacitive-touch-controller-board?variant=56217676382587 This is not a full review, more a first-impressions note after getting it connected and trying a few of the web-based examples. The short version is: it worked, it was fun, and there was one small setup detail that was worth noting if you are using a mac neo. The SPOKE board is a capacitive touch controller. In practice, that means you can touch parts of the board and use those touches as inputs. One of the interesting things about it is that it can act as a MIDI controller, so immediately my mind went to sound, music, GarageBand, and possibly coding experiments later on. image taken from  https://www.spokeboard.com/ The place to start is the SPOKE website: https://www.spokeboard.com/ On the site, there is a very useful route labelled “Have your SPOK...

20-minute primary activity: Seeing the physical world as data with microbit This is a short classroom or STEM-club activity for primary children using a pre-prepared BBC micro. The aim is not to spend the session building the whole data logger, but to let children quickly see that a small device can measure the physical world and show those measurements changing on a screen. This activity builds on two earlier posts: DIY Data Science with microbits , especially Method 1, the “Direct Link” approach, and Detecting and logging magnetism with a microbit . These have a lot more detail on what is going on and why. This activity has been used and refined with 12 groups of up to 15 children at a time. I would suggest getting them into groups of 2-3 around a computer and a microbit. What you need 1 micro, already programmed in MakeCode blocks USB cable connected to a computer MakeCode open in a Chrome-based browser A small magnet or set of magnets A torch, phone light, or simply a way of coveri...

The Earth is restless. In any given month, earthquakes rattle the planet — most too small to feel, but all carefully recorded by sensors around the globe. What if you could pull all of that data into Python and put it on a map in minutes? That is exactly what this project does. There is something compelling about real, live data. It is one thing to practise Python with made-up lists and fictional datasets; it is another to write a handful of lines of code and get back information about actual geological events happening right now. This project is a great entry point into the world of APIs — the digital doorways that let your programs reach out to the internet and bring back structured information. We are going to pull a month's worth of earthquake data from the US Geological Survey (USGS) , load it into a Python DataFrame, and then plot it on an interactive map. No specialist hardware required — just Python and curiosity. 💡 This project was inspired by the "Fetching Cu...

Have you ever looked at a Virtual Reality (VR) headset and thought, "I wish I could build something for that," only to be scared off by the mention of complex game engines, expensive hardware, or high-level coding? The landscape of digital creation has changed. You no longer need a massive workstation or a background in computer science to build immersive worlds. If you can write a few lines of basic HTML, you have everything you need to become a VR developer. By using A-Frame , an open-source web framework, and the power of modern browsers, your "playtime" can turn into a gateway to the Metaverse. Why WebVR? WebVR (and its modern successor, WebXR) is built on a simple philosophy: accessibility . Unlike traditional VR apps that require massive downloads, WebVR experiences are just links. They work on your laptop, your smartphone, and high-end headsets like the Meta Quest or Apple Vision Pro. In this guide, we have collated a series of experiments—originally shared b...

How a drinks can, a small motor, and a cheap programmable controller can open a world of making, tinkering, and genuine engineering thinking — for kids and adults alike. Eggbot  There is something quietly radical about the Junkbot idea. It started not with a lesson plan or a product brief, but with a question: what can you actually make with the stuff lying around? Over nearly a decade of exploration, educator and maker Scott Turner refined a simple concept — a vibrating robot built from a drinks can, a small motor, and a handful of pens — into something that touches on environmental science, engineering, and computing all at once. This post is for the makers who like to build first and ask questions later, for parents who want to spark something in a curious kid on a weekend, and for educators looking to point people toward genuinely interesting projects. We are going to look at how you build one, and then think about where the idea can go next. Why junk? The word “junk” i...