Robots and Physical Computing

Speech Recognition in Scratch 3 - turning Hello into Bonjour! The Raspberry Pi Foundation recently released a programming activity Alien Language , with support Dale from Machine Learning for Kids , tha... PS3 Controller to move a USB Robot Arm Guest Blogger Hiren Mistry, Nuffield Research Placement Student working at the University of Northampton. How to use a PS3 Controller to... Scratch Robot Arm It is not physical but CBiS Education have release a free robot arm simulator for Scratch.  Downloadable from their site  http://w... Tinkercad and Microbit: To make a neuron The free online CAD (and so much more) package Tinkercad  https://www.tinkercad.com/ under circuits; now has microbits as part of the list ... 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... Easy, Free and no markers Augmented Reality - location based AR For a few years...

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 simulators to play with. Three examples are listed below: - Make code for Lego EV3  https://robotsandphysicalcomputing.blogspot.com/2020/05/programming-robots-virtually-3-lego-ev3.html   - i Robot simulator  https://robotsandphysicalcomputing.blogspot.com/2020/04/programming-robots-virtually-2-irobot.html - Vex robotics Vexcode VR   https://robotsandphysicalcomputing.blogspot.com/2020/04/programming-robots-virtually-1-vexcode.html   It is the last one of these ( https://www.vexrobotics.com/vexcode-vr ) that is the focus of this post and return to hit, after an earlier discussion in  https://robotsandphysicalcomputing.blogspot.com/2020/04/programming-robots-virtually-1-vexcode.html   .  Two of the nice things about the package, apart from being free, are it uses a Scratch-like programming language and it provides a ...

The Raspberry Pi Foundation recently released a programming activity Alien Language , with support Dale from Machine Learning for Kids , that is a brilliant use of Scratch 3 - Speech Recognition to control a sprite in an alien language. Do the activity, and it is very much worth doing, and it will make sense! I  would also recommend going to the  machinelearningforkids.co.uk   site anyway it is full of exciting things to do (for example loads of activities  https://machinelearningforkids.co.uk/#!/worksheets  ) . Scratch 3 has lots of extensions that are accessible through the Extension button in the Scratch 3 editor (see below) which add new fun new blocks to play with. The critical thing for this post is  Machine Learning for Kids  have created a Scratch 3 template with their own extensions for Scratch 3 within it  https://machinelearningforkids.co.uk/scratch3/ . One of which is a Speech to Text extension (see below). You must use this one ...

I have recently been teaching a module on Internet Programming on a MSc Computing programme (see related links), and was looking for a way to introduce a little bit of physical computing to finish of the module - micro:bits offer a route. So a bit of context; most of the students on the module had first degrees in either networking or software engineering; so before they start the module they are competent in programming with Javascript, HTML, CSS and PHP. Therefore the module looked to develop new areas such as introductory blockchain ,  virtual reality via the web (e.g. WebVR), using social media sources; but lastly looking at physical computing leading to an insight into the Internet of Things (IoT). As part of this last topic gaining some experience of programming and very simple networking was looked at using the micro:bit. An activity was produced where: they, in pairs, initially replicate some code and work out how it worked; they then took the code and experim...

Finally got around to building add playing with the Kitronik :Move  https://www.kitronik.co.uk/5624-move-mini-buggy-kit-excl-microbit.html  (see below - I decided to put the green sides on the outside - just to be different). One of its features is a vertical set of holes for a pen to be placed in. Add the blocks (found at  https://github.com/KitronikLtd/pxt-kitronik-servo-lite ) in blocks editor ( https://makecode.microbit.org/ )  to control the motors. You can do the same thing with writing to the pins,  t hose instructions come with the build instructions, but using the extra blocks  is a little easier to understand. Also add the package for neopixels (type in neopixels  in the search box to find them). Two very good tutorials I found useful to start with can be found at: Neopixels on the robot  in blocks - https://www.kitronik.co.uk/blog/using-kitronik-zip-leds-bbc-microbit/ Servos on the robot in blocks -  ht...

The incredibly cute robot Cozmo became even more engaging recently with the ability to program it. A recent update to the Cozmo app (see related links) to include Code Lab allowing programming of Cozmo  through of a graphical programming approach based on Scratch Blocks . An example of the code is shown below, getting Cozmo to: Start moving around Wait until it see a face       Says Hi Everybody        Moves forward       Sounds like a cat       Looks down and then raises it's forks       Acts 'grumpy'       Acts 'happy' The video at the end shows this in action. It is an easy to use tool and with a lot of the Cozmo actions available in the blocks, put a few blocks together and very quickly you have Cozmo doing some interesting and often funny actions. Is it very flexible, no; but it is not meant to be - it is meant to be easy to use and i...

Kamibot was a recent kickstarter ( https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/kamibot/kamibot-teach-your-kids-to-code ) from the interesting named, Korean company, 3.14 Co., Ltd as a robot you can dress up in paper outfits. It is actually quite a nice little kit that can be controlled via Android, IOS or PC (available at  http://www.kamibot.com/default.php along with some of the plans for paper outfits). The software is a simple Scratch/Blockly style interface and programming is simple. Connecting the robot to the, in my case, an iPad was relatively easy. I would welcome a Mac version of the KamiBlock software but apart from that nice robot kit, that allows you to get programming quickly if you have used Scratch, Blockly or Crumble.  They have recently twitted about new piece of software for Android device - using cards on the screen in combination with their paper mapboard. Kamicard, now available for download to Android users! Who says you ...

You can control servos (small ones) from a Micro:Bit directly. Following a link from the David Whale (Twitter  @ whaleygeek ) , thank you, took me to a Kitronik blog post, https://www.kitronik.co.uk/blog/using-bbc-microbit-control-servo /, which has the answer. The code uses Microsoft Blocks taken from the post, runs the servos 180 degrees and back again, when button A is pressed. It does exactly what it should. I am also using the Tower Pro SG90 servo. Can it be replicated in Micropython? This is a new mini project, there seems to be little out there yet on how do this but the best so far is this video by  PHILG2864 : The closest I have is the following, it is essentially there. from microbit import * pin0.set_analog_period(20) while True:     pin0.write_analog(180)     sleep(1000)     pin0.write_analog(1)     sleep(1000) Setting the time period to 20ms   pin0.set_analog_period(20) seems by experiment (...