Robots and Physical Computing

Taken from:  http://www.northampton.ac.uk/news/minecraft-jam-and-history-in-the-making/ History was made on Saturday as the University of Northampton hosted Northamptonshire’s first-ever Raspberry Jam. Raspberry Jams see those with an interest in the affordable – and tiny – Raspberry Pi  computer get together to share knowledge, learn new things and meet other enthusiasts. More than 30 people of all ages attended the county’s inaugural Jam at Avenue Campus, which was organised by the University’s Associate Professor in Computing and Immersive Technologies, Dr Scott Turner. He said: “The Jam was a real success, with a wide mixture of people including fairly notable experts; those who have a Pi, but aren’t quite sure what to do with it and complete novices. “It was great to see people who had some sort of Pi-related query have their questions answered, and others showing off what they have managed to get their Pi to do. “It really helped to inspire the novices to...

In a earlier post on using micro:bit ( Playing with microbit emulator-dancing bot )  a simple dancing robot image (using the 5x 5 grid was created).  A dancing bot - 3x3 box for the body, with two legs.  Thanks to a loan of a Micro:Bit from Lancaster University I can experiment with an actual micro:bit ( @SCC_Lancaster @LMcUnderwood ) Experiment  1 - Using the buttons So the functions for the idea were: Button A - Move to the left and then back to the starting position; Button B - Move to the right  and then back to the starting position ; Buttons A+B - Jump up  and then back to the starting position; Shake - 'Crouches'  and then back to the starting position On the Microbit Experiment 2-  To add left and right tilting to it. So if the micro:bit is tilted to the right the 'bot'  moves to the right, and the same for the left. The tilting operation here is essentially - when the x on the accelerometer is...

The Mega Treasure Chest  Flotilla set  from Pimoroni, was kickstarter project that got a lot of people interested. A nice package - a hub for a collection of devices such as light sensors, barometer, temperature, switches, motors and many more; all linked to a Raspberry Pi. The kit is shown in the image to the left. A Python API exist for this system. Instructions on how to set up the Flotilla to work with Python can be found at  http://flotil.la/start/ . I wanted to play with switching the Rainbow (A set of RGB LEDs) outputs to Red, Blue and Green by pressing either 2,3, or 4 on the Touch Sensor as in the images. Using the mini-kit example from  https://github.com/pimoroni/flotilla-python/blob/master/examples/mini-kit.py  as the basis, produced a simple system that uses the Touch module and its buttons 2,3 and 4 to change the Rainbow; the code is shown below and ran on a Raspberry Pi 3 using Python 3. import color...

Well for once I am not going to be talking about robots, but my experience in setting up a Raspberry Pi touch screen - this is not a how to guide, a couple links to those are included in the post, but my experience of setting one up.  So the I bought the Raspberry Pi Touch Screen from Pimoroni and along with the stand/frame for it. Setting up the LCD frame was simple with the instructions provided and the link at the end of the instructions provide some further help http://learn.pimoroni.com/tutorial/pi-lcd/getting-started-with-raspberry-pi-7-touchscreen-lcd  on setting up the screen A tutorial from The PiHut ( https://thepihut.com/blogs/raspberry-pi-tutorials/45295044-raspberry-pi-7-touch-screen-assembly-guide ) was very useful on how to connect the screen to the Pi.  The blue side  on the white ribbon cable (provided with the screen) used in connecting the two together needs to blue side down towards the LCD (as explained in  PiHut tutorial ) and fa...

I have had an opportunity (ie, the time) to play with mBot, Scratch Programmable Robot using the mBlock software which appears to be a modified version of Scratch - so relatively easy to use. They have added a section of blocks, to the standard set, marked Robots containing blocks for both Arduino and mBot.  An earlier blog post ( mbots - graphical programming and Arduino ) discuss some of the basics of the robot.  Just for fun I wanted to play with the ultrasonic sensor, getting the robot to react, change direction (run away) and the 'face' on an LED matrix that came with the robot if there is an object in the way. The routine Loop Show a smiley face (using Port 4 ) If the ultrasonic detector senses something close (guessed at a setting of 10) Go backwards quickly Play a tone Show an upside-down smiley face  wait 1 sec Otherwise Move forward End the loop Download the code to the mBot using the Upload to Arduino button (see below). Here ...

In a earlier post on using micro:bit ( Playing with microbit emulator-dancing bot )  a simple dancing robot image (using the 5x 5 grid was created). In this post of modified version using the events to do pretty much the same thing (except the two button action)-  A dancing bot - 3x3 box for the body, with two legs.  So the functions for the idea were: Button A - make it bob up and down; Button B - makes it move to the left and right; On shake - make it jump up and down. 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 micro:bit ( https://www.microbit.co.uk/about ) has been in the press quite a bit recently - rightly so.  At the moment I have not got my hands on an actual one, though someone generously (more in later posts on that) will be lending me one to play with. Luckily you do not need the device to start playing; the code editor  ( https://www.microbit.co.uk/create-code )  has an emulator built in, so you can start playing. This post reports on my first go. So, I am starting with experimenting with the editor, using Microsoft's Block Editor - which is similar to Blockly and Scratch as an interface. What I built is simple but that is fine - A dancing bot - 3x3 box for the body, with two legs. I wanted to play with getting some interaction that uses the buttons (A and B) and shaking. So the functions for the idea were: Button A - make it bob up and down; Button B - makes it move to the left and right; Shaking it - makes it appear to jump and land (see below)...