Produce a Microbit python neural network 2: Building a Physical Microbit Neural Network

This is second in a two-post series on building a neural network using microbits with micropython. In the first post python was used to produce a neural network without the microbits. In this post the network is as shown in figure 1 is developed.

The figure below shows the arrangement of the connections to be built; pin 2 is the output of each neuron. The two micro:bits/neurons on the left of the picture taking in the two same inputs; the output from these neurons are the two inputs to the output neuron on the right.

figure 1

The micro:bit objects used in Figure 1 were produced using the micro:bit Fritzing diagram available at https://github.com/microbit-foundation/dev-docs/issues/36 thanks to David Whale (@whalleygeek ) for this.

The Inputs neurons

Neuron 1:

from microbit import *

W=[-1,-1,1]

while True:
    x1=pin0.read_digital()
    x2=pin1.read_digital()
    net = W[0]+W[1]*x1+W[2]*x2
    if net>=0:
        display.scroll("T")
        pin2.write_digital(1)
    else:
        display.scroll("F")

        pin2.write_digital(0)


Neuron 2
from microbit import *

W=[-1,1,-1]

while True:
    x1=pin0.read_digital()
    x2=pin1.read_digital()
    net = W[0]+W[1]*x1+W[2]*x2
    if net>=0:
        display.scroll("T")
        pin2.write_digital(1)
    else:
        display.scroll("F")

        pin2.write_digital(0)



Output Neuron.
Feeding the inputs from Neuron 1 and Neuron 2 as inputs
from microbit import *

W=[-1,1,1]

while True:
    x1=pin0.read_digital()
    x2=pin1.read_digital()
    net = W[0]+W[1]*x1+W[2]*x2
    if net>=0:
        display.scroll("T")
        pin2.write_digital(1)
    else:
        display.scroll("F")
        pin2.write_digital(0)

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

Produce a Microbit python neural network 1: Without the microbit initially

These two posts are really extensions of a set of post in response to a question from Carl Simmons (@Activ8Thinking) concerning building a micro:bit simple neuron. In those, the Microsoft MakeCode was used.

In this two-post series is going to go through building neurones and neural networks in Python and by the end of the second post a python-based microbit neural network

• Post 1 (this one) A single neuron and a simple neuron network will be produced in Python are produced.
• Post 2 looks at producing a network of neurons, ie. neural network using the idea from post 1 but using a three microbits.; looking to solve the problem that a single neuron can't solve, making an Exclusive OR gate (XOR)

1. Overview and non-microbit neuron

1.1 Overview: 

The characteristics of the system will be:

• Inputs are going to be binary
• Weighted sum is bias+W1*input1+w2*input2
• If weighted sum>=0 then the output is True (T on the LEDs) or '1'
• If weighted sum<0 then the output is False (F on the LEDs) or '0

1.2. Single Neuron (without the Microbit)

Lets start without the microbit and build a single neuron in Python and useful exercise in it's own right just to see the mechanism. A class Neuron is produced and all possible combination of a two-input binary system are feed in. 

class Neuron:
    def __init__(self, input1, bias, w1, w2):
        self.input1 = input1
        self.bias = bias
        self.w1=w1
        self.w2=w2
    
    def CalculateOutput (self):
        output1 = 0
        net = self.bias+self.input1[0]*self.w1+self.input1[1]*self.w2
        if net >= 0:
            output1 = 1
        else:
            output1 = 0
        return output1


for x1 in range (2):
    for x2 in range (2):
        neuron1= Neuron([x1,x2],-1,1,1)

        print("x1="+str(x1)+"x2= "+str(x2)+" Output= " +str(neuron1.CalculateOutput()))

The code above implements a simple single neuron and the weights -1,1,1 produce an OR gate and -2,1,1 produces an AND gate.

1.3 A Neural Network

We can extend the code above to produce a neural network, by feeding the outputs of one or more neurons as inputs to other neurones. The code below produces an Exclusive XOR - essentially for the two input case if the two inputs are different then the output is True. The same inputs go to two neurones but they have different weight (bias, W1 and W2) but the outputs from these neurones are the inputs to a third neurone. The code is shown below (the Neuron class hasn't changed):

class Neuron:
    def __init__(self, input1, bias, w1, w2):
        self.input1 = input1
        self.bias = bias
        self.w1=w1
        self.w2=w2
    
    def CalculateOutput (self):
        output1 = 0
        net = self.bias+self.input1[0]*self.w1+self.input1[1]*self.w2
        if net >= 0:
            output1 = 1
        else:
            output1 = 0
        return output1


for x1 in range (2):
    for x2 in range (2):
        neuron1= Neuron([x1,x2],-1,-1,1)
        neuron2= Neuron([x1,x2],-1,1,-1)
        neuron3= Neuron([neuron1.CalculateOutput(),neuron2.CalculateOutput()],-1,1,1)
        print("x1="+str(x1)+"x2= "+str(x2)+" Output 1= "+str(neuron1.CalculateOutput())+" Output 2= "+str(neuron2.CalculateOutput())+" Output overall= "+str(neuron3.CalculateOutput()))

        

2. Where next - building a Physical Microbit Neural Network

The figure below shows the arrangement of the connections to be built; pin 2 is the output of each neuron. The two micro:bits/neurons on the left of the picture taking in the two same inputs; the output from these neurons are the two inputs to the output neuron on the right.

figure 1

The micro:bit objects used in Figure 1 were produced using the micro:bit Frtzing diagram available at https://github.com/microbit-foundation/dev-docs/issues/36 thanks to David Whale (@whalleygeek ) for this.

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

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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

Simple PyGame Zero Apollo Lander #Apollo50th

With all the excitement of the 50th Anniversary of the first Moon Landing and the world record attempt Moonhack https://moonhack.com/, I wanted to experiment with PyGame Zero a little more. So I created my own, very simple, Moon Lander game using Python and PyGame Zero.

The lander has to pass through a red rectangle on the surface as it accelerates to the surface. Left and Right keys move it sideways and the up key gives it a boost. When the lander passes through the red rectangle it makes a noise; if it misses (or after it passes through the rectangle) it resets to a new position and starts again.

Two images were needed

• The lander image came from https://www.kissclipart.com/apollo-program-apollo-lunar-module-lander-moon-landing-wgwzny/ shared by Xfanmy.  This needed to shrunk by about x10 to fit.
• Surface came from Vector Designed By from Pngtree.com

An image from the game, the code and a link to the repository are shown below, please feel free to unzip the code and use it. It is a simple game and there is scope to improve (please feel free to do it - I would love to see it improve).

Repository https://github.com/scottturneruon/moonlander/archive/v1.0.zip


Resources

1. Welcome to Pygame Zero https://pygame-zero.readthedocs.io/en/stable/
2. Introduction to Pygame Zero https://pygame-zero.readthedocs.io/en/stable/introduction.html
3. Built-in Objects - Pygame Zero https://pygame-zero.readthedocs.io/en/stable/builtins.html
4. Space Asteroids - Pygame Zero http://www.penguintutor.com/projects/docs/space-asteroids-pgzero.pdf
5. Pygame Zero Invaders https://www.raspberrypi.org/magpi/pygame-zero-invaders/
6. Pygame Zero: SpaceInvaders II https://www.raspberrypi.org/magpi/pygame-zero-space-invaders-ii/
7. My first PyGame attempt https://robotsandphysicalcomputing.blogspot.com/2019/07/my-first-pygame-zero-attempt.html
8. Moon Hacks https://moonhack.com/

Cool book on the Moon Missions with Augmented Reality


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

Cool Adafruit PyGamer #1

I seem to play with Games software more and more (e.g. the recent post My first Pygame zero attempt ) and that is not a problem at all. This post is another one.

The most recent AdaBox from Adafruit (see above) was based around their PyGamer Starter Kit and it is great fun. This is a microcontroller based, open-source Retro gaming emulator; or is it a cool handheld gaming device that you can write your own games for.

It can be programmed in CircuitPython, Arduino, but I been trying it out in the Beta version of MakeCode Arcade and if you have used MakeCode for the microbit this very much the same (see below).

A nice feature about this is you can share - this code example (shown above) was developed by my son (and is shared with his permission) after about an hour of playing - the emulator below shows the game in action.

My future plans with it so far:
- Investigated the features available in MakeCode Arcade for this console;
- Play with it using CircuitPython


In summary, a really nice bit of kit, that I think has lots of potential to explore.

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 first Pygame zero attempt

I attended the brilliant #ExaBytes19 on 28th June 2019, among many very good sessions, I went to Jon Witts (@jonwitts) session on PyGame Zero [1]. Pygame zero is meant for Educational use and teaching programming through game development. Impressed with Pygame Zero relative simplicity, I have had a go myself.

The Game!
A Bee buzzes around the screen and a player moves to avoid it; if the bee and player meet the player's image changes and a sneezing sound is produced (I just fancied have a short cute noise). Both the bee and the player characters wrap around the screen.

A very helpful source of advice on getting started on using Pygame can be found at [2]; my example takes the game produced there as a starting point. If you want to explain of what Pygame does previously mentioned page[1] and the page describing the built-in  functions [3], I found a great help.

All the images were PNGs, the player characters were produced using https://www.bitmoji.com/ .  

The game code is shown below; all images have to be put in an image folder and the sounds in a sounds folder.

Liked especially that the image for a character (or Actor) can be changed very easily. Collision detection can be done in a few ways but I selected for simplicity the idea that each image has a rectangle around it and used this say when they meet, as in the example below.

if bee.colliderect(player):

        player_hurt()




Code, images, etc are available at: https://github.com/scottturneruon/pygame_tests


As background, the following were interesting and provide further useful information and tips

• Space Asteroids - Pygame Zero http://www.penguintutor.com/projects/docs/space-asteroids-pgzero.pdf
• Pygame Zero Invaders https://www.raspberrypi.org/magpi/pygame-zero-invaders/
• Pygame Zero: SpaceInvaders II https://www.raspberrypi.org/magpi/pygame-zero-space-invaders-ii/

I enjoyed playing with it, thank Jon for sharing this.


Resources

1. Welcome to Pygame Zero https://pygame-zero.readthedocs.io/en/stable/
2. Introduction to Pygame Zero https://pygame-zero.readthedocs.io/en/stable/introduction.html
3. Built-in Objects - Pygame Zero https://pygame-zero.readthedocs.io/en/stable/builtins.html
4. Space Asteroids - Pygame Zero http://www.penguintutor.com/projects/docs/space-asteroids-pgzero.pdf
5. Pygame Zero Invaders https://www.raspberrypi.org/magpi/pygame-zero-invaders/
6. Pygame Zero: SpaceInvaders II https://www.raspberrypi.org/magpi/pygame-zero-space-invaders-ii/

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

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 activities. I trialed it at recent Girls in STEAM event at the University of Northampton, UK and along with Red the Nao, it seemed to be positively received.

This is a slightly feline looking robot (it is the ears, though a bit hard to see in the image above) produced for the company MakeBlock. Programming it is most easily done through an app on a tablet (see below). It is very Scratch-like and the children seemed to pick up on that quite quickly and started producing their own code, the example below is one example they produced.

One group decided to set themselves the challenge of getting Rocky to travel along a line of them and they succeeded. Admittedly the challenge is not very hard, but the interesting point was they both decided as a group what to do and made it happen.

Rocky has many programmable features, moves around on its 'tank tracks' but also to program sounds, facial expressions and other features like controlling an LED just under the face. The face is a screen of controllable pixels.

 The code above gets Rocky to put two wide eyes of the screen, play a sleepy sound, put two sleepy eyes on the screen and then make a humming sound when the A button is pressed.


There is more to explore, looking at the sensing blocks there are many thing to try out like

• detecting shaking, 
• measuring light level, 
• reflected light level 
• colour of the objects the robot is over - have played  a little with that one,
• detecting tilting.

Lots to play with.




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