Robots and Physical Computing

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 ...

Popular Posts Programming Anki's Vector robot With the sad news that Anki is shutting down ( https://www.vox.com/2019/4/29/18522966/anki-robot-cozmo-staff-layoffs-robotics-toys-boris-sof... Top 10 popular post on Robots and Physical Computing Blog - April 2019 Popular Posts Lego Robot and Neural Networks An overview of using Lego RCX  robots for teaching neural networks present at worksho... New unicorn robot For a few weeks I have had this kit - Smartibot - waiting to play with - finally got around to it. A cardboard-based, app-controlled, AI... Lego Robot and Neural Networks An overview of using Lego RCX  robots for teaching neural networks present at workshop in 2011. Derby presentation from Scott Turne... USB Robot arm control with Python and Raspberry Pi I was asked recently if the USB robot arm could be programmed - I knew the answer was yes. The Arm came from the CBiS Education Robot Arm ... ...

For a few weeks I have had this kit - Smartibot - waiting to play with - finally got around to it. A cardboard-based, app-controlled, AI-enabled robot kit - now that is too tempting! The kit comes with the parts for one of three models,  including a unicorn robot. A battery pack (takes 4xAA batteries not included), two motors, a bunch of nuts and bolts, 2 screwdrivers, 3 plastic balls, 2 wheel hubs, bunch of elastic bands and a very cute control board. The rest is cardboard including the wheels. The control board seems under-utilised for this task, even on a quick scan; on their kickstarter site , they show it controlling 4 DC motors and 10 servos.  I was initially concerned it wouldn't have the rigidity needed; it does (even after being accidentally dropped down a flight of stairs)  The app is free to download for both Apple (see below) and Android. The AI bit initially (certainly on IoS) comes from a cool routine that uses a phone's camera to mov...

With the sad news that Anki is shutting down ( https://www.vox.com/2019/4/29/18522966/anki-robot-cozmo-staff-layoffs-robotics-toys-boris-sofman ) I thought it was time I start playing with the SDK for the Vector robot. In this short post, I providing a quick overview of getting going with this with a simple program based on the tutorials Anki provide. Installation I am using a Mac (more details are available here  https://developer.anki.com/vector/docs/install-macos.html ) but there are instructions for Windows and Linux. - You need the Vector to have been set-up previous on a tablet, and an account set-up on the Anki Cloud. - Install Homebrew - available here  https://brew.sh/ - Using Homebrew to install Python3  brew install python3 -Now install the SDK  python3 - m pip install -- user anki_vector - Lst but not least configure the set-up  python3 - m anki_vector . configure - that is it. The configuration tool tells you where the serial...

Popular Posts Lego Robot and Neural Networks An overview of using Lego RCX  robots for teaching neural networks present at workshop in 2011. Derby presentation from Scott Turne... microbit playground and Edublocks: Controlling the servo Using the brilliant Edublocks specifically to microbit ( https://microbit.edublocks.org/  ) I have been playing with a  4tronix Microbit pla... Combining Beta Edublocks and Microbit Playground I have recently been playing with Edublocks ( edublocks.org ) and the 4tronix's Microbit Playground (the appropriately named Super Kit) ... microbit playground and Edublocks: Controlling the pixels Using the brilliant Edublocks specifically to microbit ( https://microbit.edublocks.org/  ) I have been playing with a 4tronix Microbit play... How to produce a Microbit neural network This is really part two of a set of post  in response to a question from Carl Simmons ( @...

I have recently been playing with Edublocks ( edublocks.org ) and the 4tronix's Microbit Playground (the appropriately named Super Kit)  controlling programmable pixels/neopixels   and a servo . Recently a beta version of the Edublocks (see above) has become available ( https://app.edublocks.org/ ) so I wanted to play with it a bit and, at the same time, combine control the servo motor and neopixels together via a potentiometer (see below). The block version of the code is shown below: The python version np = None port1 = None pot2 = None port3 = None from microbit import * import neopixel np = neopixel.NeoPixel(pin0, 8) pin2.set_analog_period(20)# your own code while True:   port1 = pin1.read_analog()   pot2 = port1//128   port3 = port1//8   np[pot2] = (255, 0, 128)   np.show()   pin2.write_analog(port3)   sleep(250)   np.clear() To see it action via GIPHY A few thoughts on the be...

Using the brilliant Edublocks specifically to microbit ( https://microbit.edublocks.org/  ) I have been playing with a  4tronix Microbit playground . Previously I played with getting the turning a potentiometer to selected which neopixel light up , in this post the potentiometer is used to control the direction of the servo motor. Below is the block code in Edublocks used to do this. Set up use the Potentiometer attached to Pin1 to control the direction of a servo motor on pin2.  The potentiometer output is turned into values between 0 (or 5 when I checked) and 1023; it is then divided, using the Floor operation (//, returns the integer part of a division), by 8 to decrease the sensitivity of turning the potentiometer. These values allow both clockwise and anticlockwise turning of the servo to based on the full range of the potentiometer. The line pin2.set_analog_period(20) was based on experimentation in a previous post . The text-based version...