Robots and Physical Computing

I recently ran a talk and workshop on Junkbots at Wicksteed Park's Science Cafe as part of British Science Week.  The slides below contain the talk. Junkbots 2017 from Scott Turner The Science Café was established at Wicksteed Park, as the Park's creator Charles Wicksteed was an inventor and a successful engineer, giving visitors the opportunity to engage in science activities over coffee and cake in an informal and fun environment. News articles about this workshop: http://www.northantstelegraph.co.uk/news/learn-about-charles-wicksteed-s-legacy-during-british-science-week-events-at-kettering-park-1-7864098 http://www.connectfm.com/2017/03/10/87414/ Find out more at the British Science Week website 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

Junkbots ( http://junkbots.blogspot.co.uk/ ) are based around using  materials such as drink's cans, broken propellors and motors to produce something that moves by vibration. Previous designs be found at: Raspberry Pi Controlled Junkbots Junkbots blog The latest tweak to the Raspberry Pi based Junkbot design is to use the combination of Python and Pimoroni's Explorer HAT PRO to control it. Explorer HAT Pro is a good choice, it can control two motors with a library provided to simplify the programming. For this the Junkbot was the one shown above: a drinks can, pen, LEGO bits, motor and broken propellor. Before the Explorer HAT can be used the library needs to be installed via the Terminal and the instructions below curl get.pimoroni.com/explorerhat | bash Python code to control the junkbot is shown below. import explorerhat from time import sleep def spin1(duration):     explorerhat.motor.one.forward(100)     sleep(duration)...

Up to this point the junk bot building has largely being about building a moving (or drawing) 'bot' moved by vibration - limited control, but fun.  A  Nuffield funded bursary studen t, Hayden Tetley,  has being working within staff from the University of Northampton on whether LEGO 8547: Mindstorms NXT 2.0: Robot or Raspberry Pi based solutions can be incorporated with the bot to add some control of the movement (still by vibration). Idea One  Is to add a LEGO NXT brick, to move a junkbot similar.The motor and broken propeller combination in the earlier junkbots is replaced with the NXT brick and LEGO motor. A good potential feature is it a self-contained unit with power and control together, as well as being potentially fairly simple to set-up. This is the focus of this post.  Here are some videos showing idea one in action using LEGO motors, brick and the software that comes with the LEGO 8547: Mindstorms NXT 2.0: Robot : For more information on how t...