Airblock - programmable drone.

I recently received my Airblock drone from Makeblock funded through a kickstarter. If you want to see an Airblock in action this very funny video showing it being un-boxed from the Channel 5's Gadget Shown is worth a look. 



Of course I had to play with it in Air mode, it is a drone I want to see it fly. But there options for creating hovercraft and your own designs.

It is controllable via an app either by directly controlling or through Makeblock's own block based programming language Makeblock both are in the same app which is a feature I particularly liked. It can be annoying have to multiple apps for the same product.

Selecting Air Mode (as below) means you can control it directly or chose New Project to program it.

In a new project, in design mode you can set up the interface dragging buttons into the project and then write code to go behind them. I found I needed to add a power switch in the interface.

 

Click on the button and you can drag blocks to program the drone. Take it out of design mode and it the appropriately name play mode and your are ready to go.

Great fun, but I struggle to control it (that is probably just me I do with most drones). When it hits anything the propeller units (prop, motor in polystyrene case, with a magnetic connector)  do come away, as they are designed to do, for safety. A mistake I kept making was getting the propeller unit upside, but you quickly notice it - it goes all over the place. You will be playing 'hunt the prop' quite often when it crashes (and it will) they do seem to fly off.

Great fun to play with; now are available to order/pre-order (at the time of writing) at https://makeblockshop.eu/products/makeblock-airblock .


Related links:

mBot - cute, fun and Arduino based 

It is a good time to play with little robots 

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

mBot - cute, fun and Arduino based

I have had an opportunity (ie, the time) to play with mBot, Scratch Programmable Robot using the mBlock software which appears to be a modified version of Scratch - so relatively easy to use. They have added a section of blocks, to the standard set, marked Robots containing blocks for both Arduino and mBot. 

An earlier blog post (mbots - graphical programming and Arduino) discuss some of the basics of the robot. Just for fun I wanted to play with the ultrasonic sensor, getting the robot to react, change direction (run away) and the 'face' on an LED matrix that came with the robot if there is an object in the way.

The routine

• Loop
• Show a smiley face (using Port 4 )
• If the ultrasonic detector senses something close (guessed at a setting of 10)
• Go backwards quickly
• Play a tone
• Show an upside-down smiley face 
• wait 1 sec
• Otherwise
• Move forward
• End the loop

Download the code to the mBot using the Upload to Arduino button (see below). Here is where you find out whether you have set the system up correctly. In the mBlock editor pull down menu choose Connect and select the required connection; I have been using a USB cable so I needed to select the serial option and select the USB hub. After that using the Upload to Arduino button did lead to the code downloading.

The video below shows it in action

This is good fun, and a very cute. The build quality of the bots (not my building ability) the metallic construction means the bots feel substantial.  The software as it is Scratch based I think it will be interesting to try it out with my Code Clubbers - especially as they have been asking to play with more robots.

As always I would be interested to hear from others on their experiences of using this little robot.

Related links
mbots - graphical programming and Arduino






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.

mbots - graphical programming and Arduino

Makeblock (http://mblock.cc/mbot/) funded through Kickstarter the development of a new robot - mBot (https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1818505613/mbot-49-educational-robot-for-each-kid) with the subtitle "$49 educational robot for each kid". What they came up with is a interesting system that uses their mBlock software, which resembles Scratch but produces code for Arduino, to program a robot with LEDs, light sensors and buzzer integrated on the main board; but also comes with sensors for line-following, ultrasonic sensor and with the version in the kickstarter reward a 16x8 LED matrix.

My impression so far it is really quite intuitive to work with, in the example above the robot:

• moves forward;
• displays 'f' on the LED matrix; 
• turns right;
• displays 'r' on the LED matrix;
• repeats until the on-board is pressed to stop the motors. 

What I like most though is seeing the graphical code turned into Arduino code - the potential to see the same thing done into two ways adds extra educational value. 


Related

• mBlock Kids maker rocks with robots
• mBot - cute, fun and Arduino based

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.