Robots and Physical Computing

The Anki Cozmo is great fun to play with (loads of games to get it to do) and nice to program through the codelab ( https://robotsandphysicalcomputing.blogspot.com/2017/06/program-cozmo.html ) and is just so cute you want to play with it. But now Anki has released Vector ( https://developer.anki.com/blog/news/hey-vector/ ) with it's enhanced camera and built-in microphones, essentially better sensors; but the main feature (so far) has to the speech recognition. All request start with "Hey Vector", pause until the lights go blue; followed by commands for example - "my name is" which records your name and then learns your face. - "play blackjack" to not surprisingly plays games of blackjack with you. There are a load of commands, including to get the time, the temperature, etc. I am partial, to getting a fist bump from it. I have only just started exploring it (ok playing) there are loads of features I have yet to play with - just got to le...

Taken from:  University of Northampton recognised for being one of a handful of institutions teaching and researching Blockchain The University of Northampton has been recognised as one of only a handful of Higher Education (HE) institutions worldwide which are teaching or carrying out Blockchain research. Blockchain is a shared, replicated ledger that underpins technology such as cryptocurrency, but also sets out to provide the foundation for the next generation of transactional applications. Blockchain analyst website  Diar  has included the University of Northampton in a  list of just 28 HE providers that teach aspects of Blockchain and/or conduct research into it . Northampton does both. Postgraduate students on the  MSc Computing course are taught elements of Blockchain , including a general introduction to the basic concepts, plus coding and programming techniques. Meanwhile, various Northampton academics, led by Senior Lecturer in Educati...

In a previous post Micro:bit and Cube:bit 'says' Hello  I introduced the start of me playing with the  4tronix Cube:bit . One of the things I want to try is get the cube to react to music, based around the accelerometers in a micro:bit picking up vibrations.  Luckily, in an earlier post, I had done something similar for the  Proto-Pic Micro:pixel  (see  Dancing Pixels  for more details).  Essentially the idea is  the vibrations from the music shake the micro:bit enough to give measurable changes in three axis, and these values are used to change the pixel's colour - in fact five pixels at a time. The code shown below is all that was needed: from microbit import * import neopixel, random np = neopixel.NeoPixel(pin0, 125) while True:     for pxl in range (2,125, 5):         rd=int(abs(accelerometer.get_x())/20)         gr=int(abs(accelerometer.get_y())/20)   ...

Since seeing pictures of the 4tronix Cube:bit I have intrigued by it and now I have one. So what is it? It is a 3D array of neopixel-style LEDs, or another way of describing it a programmable box of LEDs (or just good fun). The option I went for the 5x5x5 array (125 LEDs) controlling it with a micro:bit, and the base for mounting and powering the grid. Instructions for putting it together can be found at  https://4tronix.co.uk/blog/?p=1770 . My main bit of advice is read the instructions carefully especially if you go for the 5x5 options, at the time of writing, you need to move a standoff around but it is all in the instructions. Admittedly I missed this step initially.  So to playtime, using a microbit I wanted to spell-out HELLO across the grid using the Micro:Bit JavaScript Blocks/MakeCode Editor. Basically, my solution revolved around creating two JavaScript functions to produce vertical and horizontal patterns on the grid (sounds good saying that -...

This is really pulling together two recent posts, one when I started playing with Edublocks for the microbit  and one about playing with BinaryBots Crab  . The BinaryBots Totem Crab is available at  https://www.binarybots.co.uk/crab.aspx Here I going to use Edublocks ( https://microbit.edublocks.org/ ) by @all_about_code to control the claw of the Crab to close when button A is pressed (and display a C on the LEDs)  and open the claw when button B is pressed. For a discussion on the Crab and what the pins are, etc goto  http://robotsandphysicalcomputing.blogspot.com/2018/08/crabby-but-fun.html  for more details.  The timing of the opening and closing is controlled by how long the C or O takes to scroll across the LEDs. As an aside, but I found it interesting (it appeals to my geekiness), if you save the blocks, using the Save button; it stores it as an XML file, an example extract is shown below: Now I want to exp...

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 - officially JavaScript and Python and but there is also a range of third-party ones. A useful place to look for what languages/tools  are available is  http://microbit.org/code-alternative-editors/ ; listing both official and third-party tools (there was a few I wasn't aware of ). One I was aware and meaning to play with, is the brilliant Edublocks by Josh Lowe ( @ all_about_code ) or more   specifically in this post Edublocks for BBC Micro:bit  ( https://microbit.edublocks.org/ ). Edublocks for the microbit (and Edublocks in general) allows graphical blocks of code, in a similar way to languages such as Scratch, to be dragged and dropped into places. That in itself would be great, but the really useful thing here is though, whilst doing it you are actually producing a Python program (technically in th...

The Beta version of Scratch 3 ( https://scratch.mit.edu/microbit ) allows certain physical computing devices to interact with the Scratch; including the micro:bit. This post looks at a little experiment with the micro:bit; producing a pen that moves around the screen controlled by tilting a micro:bit. Set-up In the video above an example of the pen moving under micro:bit control is shown. Also, some discussion of setting up Scratch to work with the micro:bit is included. The best source for the instructions to set up the micro:bit/Scratch combination and the links needed is  https://scratch.mit.edu/microbit . The key features are: - The programming of the Micro:bit via Scratch is not done by downloading a new .hex file each time as you do with the python or the javascript blocks but is done through the Scratch Link which has to be run separately to the Scratch editor each time you have a session using Scratch and the Micro:bit. There ...