Pi-Tops, Bloxels, unplugged computing and Scouts

Recently I supported an activity for a local Scout group's Beavers and Cubs, as help towards a badge. Four main activities were run.

Three Raspberry Pi based Pi-Top CEEDs (https://pi-top.com/product/ceed) were used to go through parts of a computer and to have a go at programming in Scratch.

Nice thing about the Pi-Top CEEDs are there are quick to set-up  and to store; and the parts are clear to see.

Another activity revolved around the use of Bloxels  (http://www.bloxelsbuilder.com/) to make games. This is a system that uses coloured blocks on a board to make levels and characters for , usually, a platform based game that is downloaded through an an App to a device. With the Bloxels they made a level in a game, by putting the appropriate blocks on the board and using an App to turn it into a playable level.

Two unplugged activities
- Making a list of instructions for open a drinks bottle and pouring out the contents. There are a few sneaky elements in this such as turn the top anti-clockwise but do you need to take your hand off (or at least loosen your hand on)  the top to complete it? Also they have  to try it out following the instructions.
- On paper make a list of instructions for a paper-based game, so it involved paper, pens and dice.





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

my robot BETT2017

I will start with a confession, I only had about 2 1/2 hours at BETT 2017 due to external time pressures so to say I didn't yet a chance for a good (or even a bad) look around is an understatement; so I am not reviewing the show just a few notes on what I did manage to see.


STEAM Village
First and mostly, it was great to talk to so many people, only few I had met face to face previously, about robots, micro:bits, Raspberry Pis and coding. Most of this happen in the relatively small (compared to the event space) STEAM village and nearby stalls. It was great to see the strong presence of both Raspberry Pi and Micro:Bit Foundation, along the variety of different activities and example usage of both, with Code Club (I know it is part of Raspberry Pi Foundation) there was well. This was all alongside some other companies

Four of these stuck in my mind.

1. DFRobot (https://www.dfrobot.com/) with their range of Arduino-based robots and non-programmable kits. The two kits that caught my eye was the FlameWheel robotics kit (to see more on this go to https://www.dfrobot.com/index.php?route=DFblog/blog&id=563) and the Insectbot kit (see the video below). As an aside, I recently got one of their new designs Antbo through a crowdfunding offer https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/antbo-an-insect-robot-anyone-can-build-steam-diy/ (more this in a future post)




2. School of Code (http://schoolofcode.co.uk/) with their web-based coding but with the emphasis on collaborative coding was great to see. Have at go for yourself at their character building example http://www.schoolofcode.io/game-avatar, done as part of the Hour of Code, it is good fun.


3. It was great see GitHub were there was as well, and they couldn't be more generous with the stickers and other materials. I wish I had more time to talk to them.

4. Last but not least was CBiS Education (http://www.cbis.education/) with an extremely tall model of their DIMM robot. I think their products are interesting, here are a few earlier posts about projects with their products Robot Arm and Python, UFO talks to Robot part 1, UFO talks to Robot part 2).


Outside of the STEAM village
There were two stands that particularly caught my attention.

Robots In Schools Ltd (I wish I own that name) with their Edbot package - a single Edbot but networked so the teacher can share access to the robot by assigning control to the students machine. I really liked this idea. For more details go to: https://robotsinschools.com/inclassrooms/.

Second was Ubtech (http://ubtrobot.com/) with their Alpha 1 and 2 (more on Alpha 2 in a future post). What I found most interesting was their ideas of potentially embedding Raspberry Pi or Arduino inside their Alpha 1 for a more open source solution.


Would I go back next year? 
Yes please, but I just want a day or more there though next time.  

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

Python Junkbot - PyCon UK 2016

Poster presented at PyCon UK 2016, 17th September 2016.

Pyconuk16 junkbots from Scott Turner

DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.28682.67520

For more details on the three builds:

• Raspberry Pi based: http://bit.ly/2c87qex
• Basic Micro:Bit build: http://bit.ly/2cmJo0B
• Radio Control Micro:Bit Junkbot: http://bit.ly/2cMHpDa

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

Minecraft, jam and history in the making

Taken from: http://www.northampton.ac.uk/news/minecraft-jam-and-history-in-the-making/

History was made on Saturday as the University of Northampton hosted Northamptonshire’s first-ever Raspberry Jam.

Raspberry Jams see those with an interest in the affordable – and tiny –Raspberry Pi computer get together to share knowledge, learn new things and meet other enthusiasts.

More than 30 people of all ages attended the county’s inaugural Jam at Avenue Campus, which was organised by the University’s Associate Professor in Computing and Immersive Technologies, Dr Scott Turner.

He said: “The Jam was a real success, with a wide mixture of people including fairly notable experts; those who have a Pi, but aren’t quite sure what to do with it and complete novices.

“It was great to see people who had some sort of Pi-related query have their questions answered, and others showing off what they have managed to get their Pi to do.

“It really helped to inspire the novices to get more involved in the Raspberry Pi, which will ultimately help them develop their coding skills.”

Computing and Science teacher Steve Foster, from Wollaston School, led a session on the popular Minecraft game, and was ably assisted by five of his Year 10 pupils.

One of the pupils, Ellie, said: “One of the groups had a problem with their coding and I managed to solve it for them. I love the challenges a Raspberry Pi can give you, and when you are able to solve the problem it’s really cool.”

The University is committed to making a positive social impact on the people of Northamptonshire and has set itself four ambitious challenges to meet by 2020.

One of these ‘Changemaker+ Challenges’ is to make Northamptonshire the best county in the UK for children and young people to flourish and learn – something the Raspberry Jam has contributed to.

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.

Pimoroni Flotilla first play with Python.

The Mega Treasure Chest Flotilla set from Pimoroni, was kickstarter project that got a lot of people interested. A nice package - a hub for a collection of devices such as light sensors, barometer, temperature, switches, motors and many more; all linked to a Raspberry Pi. The kit is shown in the image to the left.

A Python API exist for this system. Instructions on how to set up the Flotilla to work with Python can be found at http://flotil.la/start/ .

I wanted to play with switching the Rainbow (A set of RGB LEDs) outputs to Red, Blue and Green by pressing either 2,3, or 4 on the Touch Sensor as in the images.

Using the mini-kit example from https://github.com/pimoroni/flotilla-python/blob/master/examples/mini-kit.py as the basis, produced a simple system that uses the Touch module and its buttons 2,3 and 4 to change the Rainbow; the code is shown below and ran on a Raspberry Pi 3 using Python 3.

import colorsys

import flotilla

import time

client= flotilla.Client(

    requires={

        'one':flotilla.Rainbow,

        'two':flotilla.Touch

    })

def module_changed(channel,module):

    rainbow=client.first(flotilla.Rainbow)

    if module.is_a(flotilla.Touch):

        if module.one:

            rainbow.set_pixel(0,255,0).update()

        else:

            rainbow.set_pixel(0,0,0).update()

while not client.ready:

    pass

touch=client.first(flotilla.Touch)

rainbow=client.first(flotilla.Rainbow)

hue=0

lights_on= True

try:

    while True:

        if touch.one:

            lights_on = not lights_on

        if touch.two:

            rainbow.set_all(255,0,0).update()

        if touch.three:

            rainbow.set_all(0,255,0).update()

        if touch.four:

            rainbow.set_all(0,0,255).update()

        time.sleep(0.5)

except KeyboardInterrupt:

    client.stop()

The video below shows the system in action.

I look forward to playing with it a bit more and I would love to hear what others are doing with the Flotilla.


An other example of Python and Flotilla in action can be seen at 

 http://home.uktechreviews.com/Raspberry/Pi%20blog/files/flotilla1.html 

Related links

• http://www.recantha.co.uk/blog/?p=14476
• http://forums.pimoroni.com/t/flotilla-unofficial-getting-started-guide/1498
• https://shop.pimoroni.com/collections/flotilla/products/flotilla-mega-treasure-chest-starter-kit

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.

Experiences with Raspberry Pi Touch Screen

Well for once I am not going to be talking about robots, but my experience in setting up a Raspberry Pi touch screen - this is not a how to guide, a couple links to those are included in the post, but my experience of setting one up. 

So the I bought the Raspberry Pi Touch Screen from Pimoroni and along with the stand/frame for it.

Setting up the LCD frame was simple with the instructions provided and the link at the end of the instructions provide some further help http://learn.pimoroni.com/tutorial/pi-lcd/getting-started-with-raspberry-pi-7-touchscreen-lcd on setting up the screen

A tutorial from The PiHut (https://thepihut.com/blogs/raspberry-pi-tutorials/45295044-raspberry-pi-7-touch-screen-assembly-guide) was very useful on how to connect the screen to the Pi. The blue side  on the white ribbon cable (provided with the screen) used in connecting the two together needs to blue side down towards the LCD (as explained in PiHut tutorial) and facing away from the Pi when connecting to it, which is the bit I was unsure of. Connecting the power via the jumper leads that came with the screen means only a single power supply is need for both the screen and Pi. If you follow the  PiHut tutorial the colours of the jumper leads may needed to be changed but that is not a problem. 

I used Raspbian OS and when power up with a power lead (it needs to output enough current to power both devices) both the Pi and screen came on without any difficulty.  

The touchscreen worked well as a mouse and the single power lead makes the system much more compact.


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.

Blog stats - March 2016

The blog has been going less than a year (first post was 15th July 2015) but I thought the statistics about the blog so far might be of interest.

The Top Ten posts based on page views:

mbots - graphical programming and Arduino

22 Jul 2015, 

716

It is a good time to play with little robots

14 Nov 2015, 

401

Raspberry Pi gesture controlled Minecraft X-Wing

3 Jan 2016, 

395

Scratch Robot Arm

23 Jul 2015, 

385

OhBot Experiment

13 Aug 2015, 

323

Experience at Raspberry Pi Cademy 7-8th December 2...

12 Dec 2015, 

318

Raspberry Pi Controlled robot from junk

19 Jul 2015, 

301

Playing with Tickle and Mini-drone

4 Aug 2015, 

300

Raspberry Pi gesture controlled Minecraft X-Wing (...

24 Jan 2016, 

299

Raspberry Pi - Python Junkbot

17 Jan 2016, 

286

So small robots and Raspberry Pi, which I was hoping for as they are my interests as well.



The audience based on pages views is an interesting mix and not really sure what to make of it, apart from I hope they are all finding it useful.

Pageviews by Countries

Entry	Pageviews
United States	8650
Slovakia	1664
United Kingdom	1390
France	394
Germany	305
Ireland	96
Russia	80
Singapore	73
Portugal	72
Sweden	43

Comments and ideas are welcome, i would love to find out what others are doing.



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.