Robots and Physical Computing

1. Single Neurone Instructions: Set the inputs by pressing the buttons marked input 1 and input 2 (Red is off(False or 0) and Green is on(True or 1)) Change the weights by changing weights 1 to 3, wx goes with input x and weight 3 is the bias. To activate the neuron you need to click on the the yellow ball ('the neuron'). The video below show it in action and explains the code. To see the code go to  https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/131892234/  . A slight modification click on the bell to change the weights The code is available at  https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/171190294/ 2. Training a Neurone In this part, the training of a neuron all written in Scratch is tackled. The video shows it action and you can have a go at using the software yourself at the end of the post. The Scratch code can be found at  https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/132915502/ All opinions in this blog are the Author's and should not in any ...

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.

The 7bot is a recent kickstarter project  https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1128055363/7bot-a-powerful-desktop-robot-arm-for-future-inven  from 7bot. A metal robot arm based around Arduino Due ( https://www.arduino.cc/en/Guide/ArduinoDue   ) . Development of the software, at the time of writing, is still ongoing but looks interesting and already on the comments page of the site, user's have started posted their code.  Had to install the following software and put the un-zipped files in the library folder of the Arduino folder. https://github.com/7Bot https://github.com/sebnil/DueFlashStorage   Some useful information of setting up using the Arduino Due is available at  https://www.arduino.cc/en/Guide/ArduinoDue  and is definitely worth a read - it helped me setting it up. At the moment I have just used the examples from the GitHub site and example is shown in the video below. This looks like an exciting little arm and hopefully there ...

With a bit of time off, I had a chance to play with the Ohbot (see Previous related links below) a little more. My son and I played with trying to find could we get it to say hello if there is a face on camera but otherwise make it move randomly as if it was looking. We based the code on the examples codes that can be found at the OhBot website ( http://ohbot.weebly.com/ ). The video below shows it in action. Previous related posts OhBot Experiment OhBot a social robot 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.

As a bit of fun and an excuse to play with the OhBot - I was wondering whether I could get it to produce an introduction to a module when hello is said by the user. Features To move randomly with small movements. When the word hello is spoken it starts speaking (or appear to). Go to a standard starting point initially. The video below shows the results. Related links Ohbot- social robot OhBot ( http://ohbot.weebly.com/ ) 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.