Robots and Physical Computing

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...

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...