Robots and Physical Computing

How to produce a Microbit neural network This is really part two of a set of post  in response to a question from Carl Simmons ( @Activ8Thinking ) concerning building a   micro:bit ... Microbit Neuron - producing a single neuron using a microbit This post is in response to a question from Carl Simmons ( @Activ8Thinking ) about has anyone built a microbit simple neuron. Quick Overv... USB Robot arm control with Python and Raspberry Pi I was asked recently if the USB robot arm could be programmed - I knew the answer was yes. The Arm came from the CBiS Education Robot Arm ... Micro:bit, Servo control with Micropython or blocks You can control servos (small ones) from a Micro:Bit directly. Following a link from the David Whale (Twitter  @ whaleygeek ) , thank you, t... WebVR 5 Playtime: Augmented Reality to display Videos In previous posts ( post 1 , post 2 ) I have raved over the brilliant combination of Mozi...

Video 1: How to produce a simple web-based augmented reality application. Video 2:  Using AFrame and AR.js to create AR - this time adding an image and rotation to an AR object. Related Links Basic guide and starting point  https://aframe.io/blog/arjs/#move-the-camera-or-the-marker Example: White block (needs the Hiro marker)  https://gregarious-fibre.glitch.me/ Example: An image is added to block (needs the Hiro marker)  https://glitch.com/~dandy-custard Further guidance on setting up AR through AR.js  https://robotsandphysicalcomputing.blogspot.com/2018/07/webvr-3-playtime-augmented-reality.html Further guidance adding objects into AR  https://robotsandphysicalcomputing.blogspot.com/2018/07/webvr-4-playtime-putting-objects-into.html Guide on adding video into AR  https://robotsandphysicalcomputing.blogspot.com/2018/10/webvr5-playtime-augmented-reality-to.html   All opinions in this blog are the Author's and sho...

Still enjoying playing with Scratch and webcam. in this post,  initially improving on the example shown in a previous post Webcam and Scratch ;  enhancing the movement of Scratch the Cat by adding the interim step and facing in the direction of the 'moving finger' (see the code below).  Please go to the code at https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/263334488/   to try it yourself. Going to add one more feature to experiment with getting objects to react to the motion. In this case to explode a button or change a button to a small ball by moving the finger onto the button. The motion on the sprite is used to do this. Please try the code yourself at  https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/266837380/ All opinions in this blog are the Author's and should not in any way be seen as reflecting the views of any organisation the Author has any association with. Twitter @scottturneruon

In a previous post,  Adafruit Circuit Playground reacting to music (updated with simulator)  using vibrations to change the RGB of pixels on the Circuit Playground Express was played with (it is too much fun to not). Here I am going to go even simpler, using the sound level directly, again using MakeCode. The circuit playground includes a microphone so sound levels can be used directly, by using them to vary the RGB inputs and brightness of the pixel (see the code above). You can try the idea out on the simulator below; the circle bottom left can be used to simulate varying the sound level.  Please feel free to alter the code and share; the code is available at  https://makecode.com/_8UPY8oD54bmE All opinions in this blog are the Author's and should not in any way be seen as reflecting the views of any organisation the Author has any association with. Twitter @scottturneruon

I have to admit I do enjoy playing with Scratch. I heard you can connect a webcam to Scratch and though there might be quite a lot of set-up. I was wrong, it is was very easy just one block really. So in this very short post, I share my (very simple) code. Getting Scratch the Cat to follow my finger left or right. I am intrigued to see what else can be done. Code is at  https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/263334488/   All opinions in this blog are the Author's and should not in any way be seen as reflecting the views of any organisation the Author has any association with. Twitter @scottturneruon

In previous posts I looked at using the 4Tronix Cube:Bit with Python ( http://bit.ly/2DcXcei ) or Adafruit Circuit Playground with MakeCode ( http://bit.ly/2T0ddcN ) both used to make a 'Disco-Light' essentially reacting to vibrations from a speaker and therefore indirectly react to music. In this post, a short experiment with the Cube:Bit combined with MakeCode is shown. First thing once you are in  https://makecode.microbit.org/#  is to add the MakeCode package for the Cube released by 4tronix; details on setting this up are at  https://4tronix.co.uk/blog/?p=1770 . So the basic (and it is basic) idea in the code, is change one of the pixel/LEDs colour in response to the acceleration in the three axes, with each axis controlling either the amount of Red, Green or Blue in the LED's output. The colour is shifted one pixel along each time and the process repeats. The effect is run the colours through all the LEDs. The code is shown below: ...

This post looks at using the Adafruit Circuit Playground Express to react to music. I used Adafruit MakeCode ( https://makecode.adafruit.com/ ) to experiment with it.  The code is simple and shown below and using the acceleration in the x, y and z axis to selected values for RGB on the neopixels - the circuit is placed on a speaker and the vibrations cause the changes in the pixel RGB value. The 10 pixels are lit up in sequence, but it is so quick it is hard to see a difference between the pixels. The video below shows it action with music available from the YouTube audio library  “Eternal Structures” by Asher Fulero. All opinions in this blog are the Author's and should not in any way be seen as reflecting the views of any organisation the Author has any association with. Twitter @scottturneruon

In previous posts ( post 1 , post 2 ) I have raved over the brilliant combination of Mozilla's AFrame and Jerome Etienne's fantastic AR code - guess what this post is no different in that respect.  Here is the problem I was interested in - having a set of markers that when viewed, a different video plays for each marker.  Glitch is a great editor for this (for example  https://glitch.com/~ambitious-hub ) easy to use and it can stored assets (in this case a video). Add the assets by clicking on the asset folder and then use the add asset button, upload the file. You will need the URL for the asset this is what is included as a source in the HTML files; you get this by clicking on the asset and then copying the URL. So some initial code using Aframe and aframe-ar.js is shown below. This is set-up to display a video when the HIRO marker is shown to the camera. <!DOCTYPE html> <script src="https://aframe.io/releases/0.6.0/aframe.min.js"></scr...

The Anki Cozmo is great fun to play with (loads of games to get it to do) and nice to program through the codelab ( https://robotsandphysicalcomputing.blogspot.com/2017/06/program-cozmo.html ) and is just so cute you want to play with it. But now Anki has released Vector ( https://developer.anki.com/blog/news/hey-vector/ ) with it's enhanced camera and built-in microphones, essentially better sensors; but the main feature (so far) has to the speech recognition. All request start with "Hey Vector", pause until the lights go blue; followed by commands for example - "my name is" which records your name and then learns your face. - "play blackjack" to not surprisingly plays games of blackjack with you. There are a load of commands, including to get the time, the temperature, etc. I am partial, to getting a fist bump from it. I have only just started exploring it (ok playing) there are loads of features I have yet to play with - just got to le...

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In a previous post Micro:bit and Cube:bit 'says' Hello  I introduced the start of me playing with the  4tronix Cube:bit . One of the things I want to try is get the cube to react to music, based around the accelerometers in a micro:bit picking up vibrations.  Luckily, in an earlier post, I had done something similar for the  Proto-Pic Micro:pixel  (see  Dancing Pixels  for more details).  Essentially the idea is  the vibrations from the music shake the micro:bit enough to give measurable changes in three axis, and these values are used to change the pixel's colour - in fact five pixels at a time. The code shown below is all that was needed: from microbit import * import neopixel, random np = neopixel.NeoPixel(pin0, 125) while True:     for pxl in range (2,125, 5):         rd=int(abs(accelerometer.get_x())/20)         gr=int(abs(accelerometer.get_y())/20)   ...

Since seeing pictures of the 4tronix Cube:bit I have intrigued by it and now I have one. So what is it? It is a 3D array of neopixel-style LEDs, or another way of describing it a programmable box of LEDs (or just good fun). The option I went for the 5x5x5 array (125 LEDs) controlling it with a micro:bit, and the base for mounting and powering the grid. Instructions for putting it together can be found at  https://4tronix.co.uk/blog/?p=1770 . My main bit of advice is read the instructions carefully especially if you go for the 5x5 options, at the time of writing, you need to move a standoff around but it is all in the instructions. Admittedly I missed this step initially.  So to playtime, using a microbit I wanted to spell-out HELLO across the grid using the Micro:Bit JavaScript Blocks/MakeCode Editor. Basically, my solution revolved around creating two JavaScript functions to produce vertical and horizontal patterns on the grid (sounds good saying that -...

This is really pulling together two recent posts, one when I started playing with Edublocks for the microbit  and one about playing with BinaryBots Crab  . The BinaryBots Totem Crab is available at  https://www.binarybots.co.uk/crab.aspx Here I going to use Edublocks ( https://microbit.edublocks.org/ ) by @all_about_code to control the claw of the Crab to close when button A is pressed (and display a C on the LEDs)  and open the claw when button B is pressed. For a discussion on the Crab and what the pins are, etc goto  http://robotsandphysicalcomputing.blogspot.com/2018/08/crabby-but-fun.html  for more details.  The timing of the opening and closing is controlled by how long the C or O takes to scroll across the LEDs. As an aside, but I found it interesting (it appeals to my geekiness), if you save the blocks, using the Save button; it stores it as an XML file, an example extract is shown below: Now I want to exp...

The microbit is a great piece of kit, not least of which because of the range of programming languages and tools that can be used with it - officially JavaScript and Python and but there is also a range of third-party ones. A useful place to look for what languages/tools  are available is  http://microbit.org/code-alternative-editors/ ; listing both official and third-party tools (there was a few I wasn't aware of ). One I was aware and meaning to play with, is the brilliant Edublocks by Josh Lowe ( @ all_about_code ) or more   specifically in this post Edublocks for BBC Micro:bit  ( https://microbit.edublocks.org/ ). Edublocks for the microbit (and Edublocks in general) allows graphical blocks of code, in a similar way to languages such as Scratch, to be dragged and dropped into places. That in itself would be great, but the really useful thing here is though, whilst doing it you are actually producing a Python program (technically in th...

The Beta version of Scratch 3 ( https://scratch.mit.edu/microbit ) allows certain physical computing devices to interact with the Scratch; including the micro:bit. This post looks at a little experiment with the micro:bit; producing a pen that moves around the screen controlled by tilting a micro:bit. Set-up In the video above an example of the pen moving under micro:bit control is shown. Also, some discussion of setting up Scratch to work with the micro:bit is included. The best source for the instructions to set up the micro:bit/Scratch combination and the links needed is  https://scratch.mit.edu/microbit . The key features are: - The programming of the Micro:bit via Scratch is not done by downloading a new .hex file each time as you do with the python or the javascript blocks but is done through the Scratch Link which has to be run separately to the Scratch editor each time you have a session using Scratch and the Micro:bit. There ...

Just started playing with one of BinaryBots latest Totem robots - Crab  https://www.binarybots.co.uk/crab.aspx , which as the name suggests is a crab-like robot kit with controllable via a Microbit a claw.  It is early days playing at the moment, but some initial thoughts. You get a solid looking (and is solid) robot when it is built via a 'meccano-esque ' like construction material - Totem . A brief note on the Totem system is it is nice to build with, the design around the square nuts mean they slot into the structs and stay there - a nice feature, and the all the tools needed to build the structure come with the kit. The only thing missing from the kit is the micro:bit, but if you buying the kit you probably already have one (or more) microbits; or you can get one at the same time as buying the kit. Two boards come with the kit. First one, the power board, has the battery holder and connections for motors. The second the BinaryBot sensor ...