Robots and Physical Computing

I have had the Adafruit PyPortal for a while and finally got around to playing with it. The PyPortal cames as part the Adabox011   1. Getting going PyPortal contains a  colour TFT  touch screen; speaker;  NeoPixel;  sensors for light and temperature sensor;  microSD slot; ports for I2C and pins for either analogue or digital; with built-in 8MB flash memory. It  uses  both CircuitPython and Arduino. In this post, CircuitPython is used. A more detailed overview of the device is available at  https://learn.adafruit.com/adafruit-pyportal   To set it up I started from  https://learn.adafruit.com/adafruit-pyportal/updating-your-pyportal , I already had CircuitPython installed so skipped ahead after updating the firmware to PyPortal CircuitPython Setup and then the enjoyable bit Internet Connect!   2 From Twitter to Weather Time to play. There is an interesting example, developed by John Parks ( ht...

The top 10 most popular posts viewed during 2019 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... How to videos... Web based Augmented Reality Video 1: How to produce a simple web-based augmented reality application. Video 2:  Using AFrame and AR.js to create AR - this tim... 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... 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 ( @Activ8Thinking ) concerning building a   micro:bit ... starting with NVIDA jetson nano This is the third of a planned occasional series of posts on playing with some o...

It is always a moment of excitement (perhaps I need to get a life) when the Adafruit Adabox arrives, this time is no exception with the arrival of the Adabox014. Inside there was a great mixture of things for making snow globes based around two devices TFT Gizmo and the Circuit Playground Bluefruit; this post is considered with an initial play with the Bluefruit. Bluefruit is a small Circuit playground with the addition of Bluetooth or more accurately Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE). If you have played with the Playground express it is very similar. To experiment I wanted to play with the neopixels on the board through Circuit Python,  The starting point  https://learn.adafruit.com/adafruit-circuit-playground-bluefruit/overview  to get a bit of background and then to follow the links to how to get it all happening with Circuit. Task I wanted was to use it, using circuitpython on the Mu editor to control random colours cycling through all the neopixels and in r...

Sphero have a track record of making well sort of fast spherical robots (along with a few Star Wars ones) in a recent kickstarter campaign they have a released a tracked robot   https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/sphero/sphero-rvr-the-go-anywhere-do-anything-programmabl/description  - RVR and it is still fast and fun.   It does seem to be a step up, they are allowing more customisation with a expansion port and on-board power, aimed at connecting other pieces of hardware, for example, Microbit and Raspberry Pis.Even without these it is not short of sensors and lights  The simplest way to program it is still through the Sphero Edu App and its block programming providing a quick way to get going. This feels (to me) like a move towards the more 'traditional' robot hobbyists market - and that is fine. It comes almost completely built, so it is soon ready to go out of the box which is nice. I am interested to see what re...

This post is part of the materials for a session on Augmented Reality presenting at the 2019 SolSTICE eLearning and CLT Conference 5-6th June 2019 Edge Hill University  https://www.edgehill.ac.uk/solstice/files/2019/05/2019-Book-of-Abstracts.pdf    and the #MergedFutures Event on 14th June 2019. 1. Introduction                                                                                  So if we go to https://thimbleprojects.org/scottturneruon/692403 Using the markers above with this url running on your device (with a camera enabled) it should add tw...

The OhBot company has recently released a slightly different version to their OhBot - Picoh ( https://www.ohbot.co.uk/picoh.html ); a cute small robot head. This is a just a short post about some initial playing with the Picoh OhBot. Windows I started playing the windows based blocks (see below) programming used for programming the ohbot. Very scratch-like language but packed with lots of features. The program that loads automatically takes you through loads of the features . Python I wanted to know if I can use it with a Mac as well. The blocks are not available for a Mac but a Python-based approach is ( https://www.ohbot.co.uk/picoh-for-python.html ) . Set-up instructions are good, starting from the GitHub site  https://github.com/ohbot/picoh-python , the README file is useful including links to setting up for a Mac and links to example programs. Thonny is my prefered IDE for running Python in this case - just for the ease of use really. Mainly I have pla...

Popular Posts Moving Eyes with an Adafruit Adabox kit One of the things I enjoy is a subscription to Adabox from Adafruit, receiving the box and very soon before that finding out what the main ... 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 ( @Activ8Thinking ) concerning building a   micro:bit ... Most read posts on Robots and Physical Computing blog in September 2019 Popular Posts starting with NVIDA jetson nano This is the third of a planned occasional series of posts on playing with some of t... 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... Traffic lights - Microbit, GlowBugs and micropython In a previous post, I got a GlowBug to work with a micro:bit ( http://robotsandphysicalcomputing.blogspot.co.uk/2016/0...