Summary of Robots at BCS Northampton

On the 17th April 2018 I had the honour of presenting a public talk on robots for the Northampton Branch of the Britsh Computer Society (BCS). This post aims to summarise the session.

The session was really from a personal perspective and journey, covering where I think robots in home and schools are going, and an overview of some of the projects I have been involved. First, part was the presentation - the slides are shown below.

Robots Talk British Computer Society Northampton_17_4_2018 from Scott Turner

The videos used in the presentations are shown below. The first video is an introduction and welcome from Red the Nao robot.





Next video shows a programmed Cozmo, using Anki's graphical programming language.




Second section of the session was playing with the robots. Red the Nao, an Anki Cozmo and an UBtech Alpha2 and having a play with a Crumble-based junkbots.  Crumble junkbots were used on PC and Raspberry Pi via Pi-top CEED.

Red (at the back), alpha 2 (middle) and Cozmo (front)

Crumble controller from Redfern Electronics

Crumble as part of a junkbot.

Highlights of the evening were Red going for a walk 'hand-in-hand' with one of the audience and Cozmo chatting away; as always (and rightly) the stars of the talk are the 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

Playing with Smurf the Robot

Experimenting with an Aldebaran NAO robot - nicknamed Smurf - to get the robot to deliver a short welcome. The video below show the robot being simulated using the code in figure 1 and then shows the 'Smurf' actually carrying out the routine (the bottom video show this bit without the simulator). The only difference in the code on the simulator and the one running on the actual robot was an extra command was added at the start of the one on the robot to only start when the top of the head is tapped.

figure 1. Choregraphe program for the routine.

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.