Robots and Physical Computing

Over the last eight years I have been working (off and on) on a project, junkbots ( http://junkbots.blogspot.co.uk/2010/01/introduction.html ), in which 'junk' is used to embed environmental, engineering and computing concepts. One part that has grown from this project is using drinks cans, motor, batteries and something to unbalance the motor to produce a vibrating 'bot' that move along a smooth surface.  To add a little more control both Raspberry Pis ( http://robotsandphysicalcomputing.blogspot.co.uk/2015/07/raspberry-pi-controlled-robot-from-junk.html ) and Micro:bits ( http://robotsandphysicalcomputing.blogspot.co.uk/2016/09/do-it-yourself-remote-controlled.html ) have been investigated. In this post a Crumble controller from Redfern Electronics is used. The crumble controller is an excellent board for this project, it is relatively cheap, it is programmable with it's own graphical language, and it has motor drivers built in. In the figure to the lef...

In an earlier post I played with 4Tronix's CrumbleBot to make an edge follower robot ( http://robotsandphysicalcomputing.blogspot.co.uk/2015/07/edge-following-crumblebot.html ). I wanted to play a little more, so I looked at making it 'explore' a room a bit and recently 4Tronix's have released an add-on panning ultrasonic sensor for the CrumbleBot - how can I resist? What is a CrumbleBot The CrumbleBot  (http://4tronix.co.uk/store/index.php?rt=product/product&product_id=493 ) is based around the Redfern Electronic's Crumble Controller ( http://redfernelectronics.co.uk/crumble/ ) and Crumble software ( http://redfernelectronics.co.uk/crumble-software/ ); providing an intuitive graphical interface (similar to Scratch) to control two motors and four inputs/outputs. The CrumbleBot comes with a number sensors including  line-detecting sensors and Light-Dependent Resistors for light detection and you use crocodile clips to connect the sensors to the in...

Recently I have been playing with the CrumbleBot (http://4tronix.co.uk/store/index.php?rt=product/product&product_id=493 ) based around the Crumble Controller ( http://redfernelectronics.co.uk/crumble/ ) providing a intuitive graphical interface (similar to Scratch) to control two motors and four inputs/outputs. The CrumbleBot comes with line-detecting sensors and Light-Dependent Resistors for light detection, with a few other features that I have yet to play with. So is nice little framework for simple robotics. Make sure you order the Crumble Controller at the same time as CrumbleBot. Building the 'Bot' is relatively simple and 4Tronix have provided some easy to follow instructions on-line ( http://4tronix.co.uk/crumble/CrumbleBot.pdf ) that are almost foolproof (I manage to build it!). So I wanted to experiment with making a edge following robot - where the robot goes around a line by following the edge of the line. The idea is while make small movements, Check th...