Robots and Physical Computing

In the   last post I was playing with 4Tronix's   Bit:Bot . In this post I will show the initial experimentation with an artificial neuron controlling the Bit:Bot to follow the edge of a line (it follows the left-hand side of the line). The neurons (well two separate ones, S1 and S2) are produced using weighted sums - summing the weights x inputs [ right-hand sensor (rs) and left-hand sensor (ls)] plus a bias for each neuron in this case w[0] and w[3].                         net=w[0]+w[1]*rs+w[2]*ls           net2=w[3]+w[4]*rs+w[5]*ls   If weighted sum >=0 then its output 1 otherwise 0       if net>=0:          s1=1     else:         s1=0     if net2>=0:         s2=1     else:       ...

When I first heard of this robot, my first thought was what a great idea; a robot with neopixels (I know I should be saying 'smart RGB LEDs' but neopixels is so much more snappier) controlled via a micro:bit. A good starting point for learning more about this robot, is the details on the 4Tronix site/blog , which includes build guidance and programming instructions for micropython and PXT. Though for the micropython code you might need to change pinX.digital_write() to pinX.write_digital()  where X is the pin number. My play code was to randomly select which neopixels to light up, I didn't include code to turn them off so multiple ones can be on. The robot is driven forwards, waits, backward, waits, turns to the right and then the left; and then repeats.  Code: from microbit import * import neopixel, random np = neopixel.NeoPixel(pin13, 12) def forward(n):     pin0.write_digital(1)     pin8.write_digital(0)  ...

The long awaited Hackaball has been released to those who backed as a kickstarter: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/hackaball/hackaball-a-programmable-ball-for-active-and-creat  , designed as a tough, easily programmable device for children that can be thrown around and (within reason) treated roughly. Further protected by an outer shell. The microcontroller is surrounded by a tough what appears to be a silicone (or similar) ring and encased in a two rubbery halves of a ball. In included within are  sensors (accelerometer and gyro), vibration motor,  LEDs, rechargeable battery, and a speaker (that can be programmed to make some interesting sounds, that go down well with children and adults). The two halves of the ball are translucent and diffuse the LEDs effectively. The computer you can throw, was the campaign's strapline and that is not an idle boast, I have let a six-year throw it around a large room with hard floors and even harder wall...