Robots and Physical Computing

The free online CAD (and so much more) package Tinkercad  https://www.tinkercad.com/ under circuits; now has microbits as part of the list of basic components available to build circuits out of. To have a quick play I wonder if using the built in Scratch=like code blocks, I could build a simulation of neuron on the microbit. Requirements  - By altering the bias, weights change the behaviour of buttons A and B -when A is pressed a variable input1 is set to 1 and when released it goes to 0. The same happens for Button B and a variable input 2 - if (bias+weight1*input1+weight2*input2)>=0 then a T for True appears of the LEDs otherwise F for False is shown. That is it really, apart initialising the variables. The code for producing an OR is shown below and the GIF at the end shows an AND in action: The GIF below shows it action for an AND (bias is set to -2); change the bias to -1 and you would get an OR. The whole thing is available at:  https://www.tinkercad.com/things/...

This post forms part of occasional posts about playing  with Marty the Robot V2 ( https://shop.robotical.io/products/marty-the-robot-v2 ) from Robotical. In this post I am going to do a quick look at initially setting it up and a bit of Scratch programming. Set-up I had a partially assembled version so most of the fiddly bits of putting the legs together etc were done; the instructions clearly make out the start of the instructions for building the partly assembled Marty. It is ready to build from the box including adding in a screwdriver. The only deviation I had to make from the build instructions was I having to partially disassemble the arm bit already done to fix the rest of the arm together - this was minor. I am initially running this through an iphone and setting it up to do this was exceptionally easy to do and follow.  Download the app (just search for 'Marty the Robot' and found the right app),  pair it up with BlueTooth,  calibrate - just followed the in...

Popular Posts 10 top read posts on Robots and Physical Computing blog in 2020 microbit and neopixel cube reacting to music Please click on the links below for more details. Popular Posts PS3 Controller to move a USB Ro... Cube and microbit reacting to music In a previous post - 'Dancing' Snowman - ok flashing LEDs to music - I played with Microbit V2 with its built-in microphone in comb... PS3 Controller to move a USB Robot Arm Guest Blogger Hiren Mistry, Nuffield Research Placement Student working at the University of Northampton. How to use a PS3 Controller to... 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 3: LEGO EV3 In this series of posts, I am going to look at experimenting with a few  tools that allow robots to be simulated, programmed, these are ide... WebVR 5 Playtime: Augmen...

microbit and neopixel cube reacting to music Please click on the links below for more details. Popular Posts PS3 Controller to move a USB Robot Arm Guest Blogger Hiren Mistry, Nuffield Research Placement Student working at the University of Northampton. How to use a PS3 Controller to... WebVR 5 Playtime: Augmented Reality to display Videos In previous posts ( post 1 , post 2 ) I have raved over the brilliant combination of Mozilla's AFrame and Jerome Etienne's fantastic... Micro:bit, Servo control with Micropython or blocks You can control servos (small ones) from a Micro:Bit directly. Following a link from the David Whale (Twitter  @ whaleygeek ) , thank you, t... 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... Speech with EduBlocks on BBC microbit The microbit is a great piece of kit, not least of wh...

In a previous post - 'Dancing' Snowman - ok flashing LEDs to music - I played with Microbit V2 with its built-in microphone in combination with a Ryan Walmsley's SnowPi RGB  https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ryanwalmsley/snowpi-rgb-edition  to make a Snowman that reacts to music. In this post, the aim is to show the idea been extended to a Cube of programmable LEDs the 4tronix's Cube:Bit . Essentially the process is the same as the previous post the microphone detects the sound level and cause an LED to light up.  Only a few minor changes were made to the code from the previous example. - The Pin had to be changed from 2 to 0 in the code (see Figure 1); - Increase the number of pixels/LEDs in the settings (see Figure 1); - It no longer chooses random LEDs/pixels to light up; but alters the first one and shifts the result to the result to the next one - so the lights shifts through the LEDs (see figure 2); - Add in when it is quiet set the first LED to set a value...

PS3 Controller to move a USB Robot Arm Guest Blogger Hiren Mistry, Nuffield Research Placement Student working at the University of Northampton. How to use a PS3 Controller to... Programming Robots Virtually 3: LEGO EV3 In this series of posts, I am going to look at experimenting with a few  tools that allow robots to be simulated, programmed, these are ide... WebVR 5 Playtime: Augmented Reality to display Videos In previous posts ( post 1 , post 2 ) I have raved over the brilliant combination of Mozilla's AFrame and Jerome Etienne's fantastic... Free your Augmented Reality   Dr Scott Turner   Director of  Computing at Canterbury Christ Church University , Kent and a Code Club Volunteer.     Age Range 10-14 ye... Dance Snowman This post discusses a project that I want to play with since finding out the new Microbit V2 has an built in microphone - this is to use the... WebVR 3 Playtime: Augmented Reality I am going to try to persuade you that using A-Fr...

This post discusses a project that I want to play with since finding out the new Microbit V2 has an built in microphone - this is to use the new microbit in combination with a Ryan Walmsley's SnowPi RGB  https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ryanwalmsley/snowpi-rgb-edition to make the snow,man change the LEDs as the music's volume changes via the microphone. First though, thank to you to the fabulous  Rachel @ItsAll_Geek2Me from Microbit Education Foundation for letting me have Microbits to play with. So thehe starting point is the Snowman, essentially following the instructions at snowpi.xyz for setting it up and writing an initial program in makecode for the snowman. If fact the code in this project is a twist on the code found there. You need to use  https://makecode.microbit.org/beta#editor at the time of writing and add the neopixels extension (see snowpi.xyz for more details) Some new blocks in the current beta version of makecode add for the new microbit; incl...