Robots and Physical Computing

BBC micro bot - tweeting BBC Basic (updated) BBC Mirco Bot site  https://www.8bitkick.cc/bbc-micro-bot.html  - where you tweet  @bbcmicrobot  and run BBC Basic code on BBC Micro emulator. It returns a video of your code running. Programming Robots Virtually 1 - VEXcode VR For a number of years, I have been playing with robots as a means of developing programming/coding skills with students.  Coral Dev Board and Raspberry Pi This is the second of a planned occasional series of posts on playing with some of the current AI specific add-on processors for Intenet of  things (IoT) Programming Robots Virtually 2: iRobot Simulator In this series of posts, I am going to look at experimenting with a few  tools that allow robots to be simulated, programmed PS3 Controller to move a USB Robot Arm Guest Blogger Hiren Mistry, Nuffield Research Placement Student working at the University of Northampton. Ho...

In this series of posts, I am going to look at experimenting with a few  tools that allow robots to be simulated, programmed, ideally web-based, free and simple to use. In this post, I am looking at iRobots recently released free tool that can be used on computers, tablets and phone to program a simulated  iRobot Root robot  targetted at educational use. The initial inspiration for looking at this was through an  IEEE Spectrum online article ; the tool is web-based app and can be found at  https://code.irobot.com/#/   In my opinion, it's most interesting feature is the same code can be written in three different ways. The codes below were the same thing (touch the left sensor turns and draws left, similarly for the right sensor; and lastly when front bump sensor touched it moves forward and plays a C) on all three levels. You only need to write it in one and it is usually available in all three levels, potentially good for transitioning betwee...

For a number of years, I have been playing with robots as a means of developing programming/coding skills with students. The problem is when classes get larger or it is used as part of an assessment there is very rarely enough robots to satisfy all the students  Turner and Hill (2008) . So therefore, the search has been on for a tool that allows robots to be simulated, programmed, ideally web-based, free and simple to use. Lately, a number of interesting tools have arisen. In this series of posts, I am going to look at experimenting with a few of them. In this post, starting by looking at VEXCode VR - available at  https://vr.vex.com/ . VEXcode VR  https://vr.vex.com/   from VEX Robotics ( https://www.vexrobotics.com/ ) is a simulator and programming tool for their Scratch-like programming tool VEXCode - at the time of writing is free. If you can do Scratch this is a nice next stage, consisting of the simulator (playground) and the programming environment (s...

I assume others have been playing with it for a while, but yesterday I can across the BBC Mirco Bot site  https://www.8bitkick.cc/bbc-micro-bot.html  - where you tweet  @bbcmicrobot  and run BBC Basic code on BBC Micro emulator. It returns a video of your code running.  For those of us, who either had (I didn't - ahh) or wanted a BBC Micro (that is me) it is a cool thing; combining tweeting and programming on one go. I had a go yesterday Last try @bbcmicrobot 10 REM Area of a circle 20 Radius=5 30 MODE 8 40 FOR loop=1 TO 20 50 MOVE 150,200 60 PLOT 145,Radius*loop,0 70 NEXT 80 RUN — Dr Scott Turner (@scottturneruon) April 2, 2020 This was returned pic.twitter.com/hGnijtpx0T — BBC Micro 🦉 bot (@bbcmicrobot) April 2, 2020 Have a go it is fun. @bbcmicrobot 10 MODE 18 15 FOR i=1 TO 15 20 COLOUR 128+i 30 PRINT TAB(29,10);"Twitterchats Rock " 50 PRINT TAB(36,10);" #LTHEchat #CASChat " 70 NEXT i — Dr Scott Turner (@scottturneruon...

I was lucky recently to invited to participate in a podcast on wide-ranging topics with Drs Michael Opuku Agyeman and Triantafyllos Kanakis. The discussion roamed around computing, physical aspects of computing, social benefits of technologies, industry 4.0, our research and a whole lot more. Good fun. The podcast can be found below: 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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