Top posts on this blog in March 2024

The Top 10 viewed post on this blog in March 2024. Covering areas such as small robots, augmented reality, Scratch programming, robots.

• Microbit Remote Control CBiS Car

  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 combinat...
• 

  Escape the Maze with a VR robot - Vex VR

  You don't need to buy a robot to get programming a robot, now there are a range of free and relatively simple to start with robot simula...
• 

  Programming Anki's Vector robot

  With the sad news that Anki is shutting down ( https://www.vox.com/2019/4/29/18522966/anki-robot-cozmo-staff-layoffs-robotics-toys-boris-sof...
• 

  Easy, Free and Quick Augmented Reality (AR) - AR.js Studio - Marker based

  For a few years, I have been a fan of Aframe and AR.js - these are fantastic tools for creating web-based Virtual and Augmented Reality.  No...
• 

  Speech Recognition in Scratch 3 - turning Hello into Bonjour!

  The Raspberry Pi Foundation recently released a programming activity Alien Language , with support Dale from Machine Learning for Kids , tha...
• 

  Programming Robots Virtually 1 - VEXcode VR

  For a number of years, I have been playing with robots as a means of developing programming/coding skills with students. The problem is when...
• 

  Scratch Robot Arm

  It is not physical but CBiS Education have release a free robot arm simulator for Scratch.  Downloadable from their site  http://w...
• 

  Codey Rocky the new robot.

  I recently tried out a new (well new to me) robot Codey Rocky - and yes I am going to tell people it's name is Rocky- for STEM outreach...
• 

  WebVR 3 Playtime: Augmented Reality

  I am going to try to persuade you that using A-Frame it is not hard to do some simple Augmented Reality (AR) for free, via a browser, but th...
• 

  Speech with EduBlocks on BBC microbit

  The microbit is a great piece of kit, not least of which because of the range of programming languages and tools that can be used with it - ...

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

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.

Robots behaving...

Reblogged from: http://scott-ltattempts.blogspot.co.uk/2011/05/robot-behaviours.html


Behaviour based robots was used in the teaching as way of getting the students to think out AI a little deeper and in particular Do we need Human Level intelligence? or rather Do we always need to aim for Human Level Intelligence?

Lego Mindstorms robot are a good vehicle for students to start trying out idea around behaviour-based robotics. They are inexpensive, programmable and with the LeJOS software installed on them; have behaviours built into the programming which is done in Java.

A good example to use comes from Bagnall's book (B Bagnall (2002) Core Lego Mindstorms: 

Programming the RCX in Java , ISBN: 978-0130093646)

code 1: HitWall

//Taken from Bagnall (2002)
import josx.robotics.*;
import josx.platform.rcx.*;
public class HitWall implements Behavior
{
public boolean takeControl()
{
return Sensor.S2.readBooleanValue();
}
public void suppress()
{
Motor.A.stop();
Motor.C.stop();
}
public void action()
{
Motor.A.backward();
Motor.C.backward();
try{Thread.sleep(1000);}catch(Exception e){}
Motor.A.stop();
try{Thread.sleep(300);}catch(Exception e){}
Motor.C.stop();
}
}

Code 2: DriveForward

//Taken from Bagnall (2002)

import josx.robotics.*;
import josx.platform.rcx.*;
public class DriveForward implements Behavior
{
public boolean takeControl()
{
return true;
}
public void suppress()
{
Motor.A.stop();
Motor.C.stop();
}
public void action()
{
Motor.A.forward();
Motor.C.forward();
}
}



Code 3: Bumper Car

import josx.robotics.*;
public class BumperCar
{
public static void main(String [] args)
{
Behavior b1=new DriveForward();
Behavior b2=new HitWall();
Behavior [] bArray ={b1,b2};
Arbitrator arby=new Arbitrator(bArray);
arby.start();
}
}

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.

Lego Mindstorms – Sentry Robots

Sameer Kumar Shrestha, Northampton

The report presents the dissertation on title Prototype of Sentry Robots for Advanced Security which includes the use of LEGO robots showing interaction between each other with the help of wireless communication medium in Bluetooth. The purpose of the work is to build a communication between multiple LEGO robots using the wireless technology. For this task, the NXT version of LEGO Mindstorms has been selected. It is because there is need of complex communication which is possible through wireless medium such as Bluetooth and also a suitable processing device for the proposed task which is present in the LEGO Mindstorms NXT. The report has also focused on the background information about the NXT system and its great flexibility with LeJOS NXJ as the programming platform. The outcome is the implementation of developed work with the use LEGO Mindstorms NXT and the LeJOS NXJ as programming platform. The task was approached with one LEGO NXT robot maintaining the distance between the object in the environment and searching the object by rotating in case of lost. After the completion of the first task, the next task was to study the communication behavior of multiple robots communicating with each other to fulfill the same job. For this, three NXT robots were taken and programmed in such a way that they form the shape of triangle and keep tracking the object.  All three of them send and wait for the information from each other and process this information to produce a suitable output, i.e. to respond to the action from each other. Thus, it was found that the implementation of several processes to multiple LEGO based communication had faults, due to the technical hitches with the communication technology and limitations of the NXT systems.

• 
  

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.

Narinder's Swarm Robots

This time not my experimentation but by a colleague and student I was supervising.

Some interesting work has been developed by Narinder Singh (MSc Computing student and Technician) in the Department of Computing and Immersive Technology, University of Northampton. The work revolves around investigating the use of relatively simple robots, kilobots, to investigate swarm robotics.

The kilobots (http://www.k-team.com/mobile-robotics-products/kilobot) are relatively low-cost devices specifically designed for work of swarm/collective intelligence experiments.


Example:Dancing Kilobots 

For more examples go to: Kilobot videoss

Supervisor Scott Turner


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.

Robots and Problem-solving or is it Computational Thinking

Confession time, this has been a research interest for me, along with a number of colleagues, since around 2005. It started with undergraduate students - investigating teaching and developing problem solving skills as a first step developing programming skills through the use of LEGO-based robots and graphics based programming for undergraduate students. The main vehicle for developing the problem-solving skills has been LEGO Mindstorms robotics kits and series of gradually more challenging robot-based tasks.

Lawhead et al (2003) stated that robots “…provide entry level programming students with a physical model to visually demonstrate concepts” and “the most important benefit of using robots in teaching introductory courses is the focus provided on learning language independent, persistent truths about programming and programming techniques. Robots readily illustrate the idea of computation as interaction”. Synergies can be made with our work and those one on pre-object programming and simulation of robots for teaching programming as a visual approach to the teaching of the widely used programming language  Java.

The main benefits that the students stated of this approach was they  believe robots provide a method to visually and physically see the outcome of a problem. The approach taken the module has been visually-orientated. The appropriateness of this seems to be borne out by the student comments. Student satisfaction  for a module based around this approach is over 92%. One of the comments made was that the linking of the problem-solving robot task and the programming assignment was liked. This feedback is similar to that reported by other authors when teaching programming using robots (Williams et al, 2003).  There is enough scope in this approach to have different levels of complexity/functionality within an assignment task offering a basic ‘pass’ level for a particular task, but also the scope for those students that desire more of a challenge.




Reference
Lawhead PB, Bland CG, Barnes DJ, Duncan ME, Goldweber M, Hollingsworth RG,
Schep M (2003), A Road Map for Teaching Introductory Programming Using
LEGO Mindstorms Robots SIGCSE Bulletin, 35(2): 191-201.
Williams AB (2003) The Qualitative Impact of Using LEGO MINDSTORMS Robot
to Teach Computer Engineering IEEE Trans. Educ. Vol. 46 pp 206.


Publications

• Hill, G. and Turner, S. J. (2014) Problems First, Second and Third. International Journal of Quality Assurance in Engineering and Technology Education (IJQAETE). 3(3), pp. 88-109. ISSN: 2155-496  DOI: 10.4018/ijqaete.2014070104
• Turner S (2014) "Greenfoot in Problem solving and Artificial Intelligence" CEISEE 2014 University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Chengdu China 24-25 April 2014. 2013
• Turner S (2011) Neural Nets Robotics Workshop. Bot Shop! University of Derby, 28th October 2011.
• Hill G, Turner S (2011) Chapter 7 Problems First Software Industry-Oriented Education Practices and Curriculum Development: Experiences and Lessons edited by Drs. Matthew Hussey, Xiaofei Xu and Bing Wu. ISBN: 978-1609607975 IGI Global June 2011  DOI: 10.4018/978-1-60960-797-5.ch007
• Turner S and Hill G (2010) "Innovative use of Robots and Graphical Programming in Software Education" Computer Education Ser. 117 No. 9 pp 54-57 ISSN: 1672-5913
• Turner S, Hill G, Adams J (2009) "Robots in problem solving in programming" 9th 1-day Teaching of Programming Workshop, University of Bath, 6th April 2009.  
• Turner S and Hill G(2008) "Robots within the Teaching of Problem-Solving" ITALICS vol. 7 No. 1 June 2008 pp 108-119 ISSN 1473-7507 
• Turner S and Adams J (2008) "Robots and Problem Solving" 9th Higher Education Academy-ICS Annual Conference, Liverpool Hope University, 26th August - 28th August 2008. pp. 14 ISBN 978-0-9559676-0-3. 
• Adams, J. and Turner, S., (2008) Problem Solving and Creativity for Undergraduate Computing and Engineering students: the use of robots as a development tool Creating Contemporary Student Learning Environments 2008, Northampton, UK. 
• Adams, J. and Turner, S., (2008) Problem Solving and Creativity for Undergraduate Engineers: process or product? International Conference on Innovation, Good Practice and Research in Engineering Education 2008, Loughborough, UK. 
• Adams, J., Turner, S., Kaczmarczyk, S., Picton, P. and Demian, P.,(2008). Problem Solving and Creativity for Undergraduate Engineers: findings of an action research project involving robots International Conference on Engineering Education ICEE 2008, Budapest, Hungary. 
• Turner S and Hill G(2007) Robots in Problem-Solving and Programming 8th Annual Conference of the Subject Centre for Information and Computer Sciences, University of Southampton, 28th - 30th August 2007, pp 82-85 ISBN 0-978-0-9552005-7-1 
• Turner S (2007) Developing problem-solving teaching material based upon Microsoft Robotics Studio. 8th Annual Conference of the Subject Centre for Information and Computer Sciences, University of Southampton, 28th - 30th August 2007 pp 151 ISBN 0-978-0-9552005-7-1 
• Turner S (2007) Developing problem-solving teaching materials based upon Microsoft Robotics Studio. Innovative Teaching Development Fund Dissemination Day 1st March 2007 Microsoft:London 
• Turner S and Hill G (2006) The Inclusion Of Robots Within The Teaching Of Problemsolving: Preliminary Results Proceedings of 7th Annual Conference of the ICS HE Academy Trinity College, Dublin, 29th - 31st August 2006 Proceedings pg 241-242 ISBN 0-9552005-3-9 

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.