Robots and Physical Computing

I wanted to contol the CBiS micro:Bit Car via gestures whilst holding another micro:Bit (see Figure 1) I went for: - Button A in combination with moving the micro:bit left or right, moves 'Car' forwards or backwards; - Button B in combination with moving the micro:bit rotated forward or backwards, turns the 'Car' left or right; Perhaps not the most logical combination but fun. Figure 1: CBiS micro:bit car and 'controller' micro:bit The inspiration from this remote car idea came from four sources - CBiS Education site and seeing them demonstrating it; - Technology with Save Us Micro:bot Radio Control website  ; - DrBadgr blog on the Lunch Box robot ; - A twitter conversation @jobadge @scottturneruon #simples pic.twitter.com/1pXJEyNrSn — Lorraine Underwood (@LMcUnderwood) May 1, 2017 The approach taken is simple; the Controller micro:bit has the following operations (see Figure 2 for the PXT code) Buttons A+B ...

Continuing to play with PXT ( http://pxt.microbit.org ) and the Micro:bit, I wanted to try this in combination with a  Proto-Pic Micro-pixel board with its 32 neopixel LEDs. The routine (shown in the screenshot below) use the Neopixels package (use the add package option on the menu to add it) to do two things: On pressing button B - cycle through the colours and shift the colour to the next pixel producing a shifting pattern. On pressing button  A - the pixels are cleared one by one. Code is shown above, and thank you to Jonathan " Peli" de Halleux ( @ pelikhan )  for pointing out the redundant code I had left in, it is appreciated. The video below shows the system in action: You can try the code out in the simulator below: 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

Just been playing with Microsoft's PXT language for the Micro:bit  - so had a go at 'Hot Cross Buns'. Nice to see it shows in the simulator the wiring connections to the speakers. Hot-Cross Buns - runs on either button A or B being  pressed.  By the way if the sound is anoying you, press the stop button on the simulator below. 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