Top 10 viewed posts 2021 on the Robot and Physical Computing Blog

• 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...
• 

  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...
• 

  Scratch Robot Arm

  It is not physical but CBiS Education have release a free robot arm simulator for Scratch.  Downloadable from their site  http://w...
• 

  Tinkercad and Microbit: To make a neuron

  The free online CAD (and so much more) package Tinkercad  https://www.tinkercad.com/ under circuits; now has microbits as part of the list ...
• 

  Escape the Maze with a VR robot - Vex VR

  You don't need to buy a robot to get programming a robot, now there are a range of free and relatively simple to start with robot simula...
• 

  Easy, Free and no markers Augmented Reality - location based AR

  For a few years, I have been a fan of Aframe and AR.js - these are fantastic tools for creating web-based Virtual and Augmented Reality.  No...
• 

  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 ...
• 

  Explaining the Tinkercad microbit Neural network

  In a previous post, I looked at developing a neural network in Tinkercad around the Microbit (details available here ) and the whole model ...
• 

  VR robot in a maze - from Blocks to Python

  Recently I produced a post about playing with Vex Robotics VexCode VR blocks and the Maze Playground. The post finished with me saying I w...
• 

  4tronix Eggbit - cute and wearable - hug avoider

  / The ever-brilliant 4tronix have produced Eggbit https://shop.4tronix.co.uk/collections/microbit-accessories/products/eggbit;  a cute, wear...

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

4tronix Eggbit - cute and wearable - hug avoider

/

The ever-brilliant 4tronix have produced Eggbit https://shop.4tronix.co.uk/collections/microbit-accessories/products/eggbit; a cute, wearable device, with ultrasonic sensors, buttons and LEDs for the microbit - I couldn't resist.

Programming is through Makecode and an extension is available, to download and install. To use the extension, at the time of writing this, go through the add extension option and use the search box to add it  from https://github.com/4tronix/EggBit

So what to do with it? Inspired by social distancing  (or not being a 'hugger')  created it so that when people get too close the RGB LEDs go out - simple but fun. The distance is set at 20cm for testing. The code is shown below.

It was fun to do and perhaps swapping the settings around so the lights come on when people at too close might be more fun or using sound. This is a lovely device to play with and the look encourages play - just look how cute it is! The price is reasonable and the look means it has the potential to encourage a wide range of people to experiment with it.

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

Cozmo - Wall-E has a rival

I suspect someone from Anki was watching Wall-E (not the first to notice that see verge article http://www.theverge.com/2016/6/27/12007772/anki-cozmo-robot-ai-toy-wall-e-pixar) when they designed Cozmo it sounds, looks a bit like and has cuteness of Wall-E; but resembles the little cleaning robot M-O (which it is hard not to like); all crossed with a cute bulldozer. That is two ‘cutes’ in one sentence – this is a robot has this in abundance. From saying your name, to excitedly tapping the blocks, to victory dances when it wins a game. This is a smart little robot full of a lot of features that are revealed over the days you play with it.

The video from the manufacturer, Anki, above gives some idea of the technical aspects of it.

Anki have already produced an open-source SDK https://developer.anki.com/en-gb that is Python-based.

Powering up Cozmo for the first time and connecting to the App is relatively easy and quickly you are into playing with it (I am trying not to say him or her). 

It is not, at the time of writing, available in the UK; I ordered mine from amazom.com and it arrived within two weeks. 



My personal view is Cozmo is worth the price (I paid $179.99 + shipping, etc), the Anki team behind have made this a small robot that packs in a lot of user experience. You want to play with it, and hear it say your name or watch it win or lose in a game with you. I am looking forward to trying to program it - but maybe first I will just go and have another game of tapping the blocks, or through AR watch it picking up the blocks from its perspective, or...

SDK
Installation guide - http://cozmosdk.anki.com/docs/initial.html


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

Playing with Smurf the Robot

Experimenting with an Aldebaran NAO robot - nicknamed Smurf - to get the robot to deliver a short welcome. The video below show the robot being simulated using the code in figure 1 and then shows the 'Smurf' actually carrying out the routine (the bottom video show this bit without the simulator). The only difference in the code on the simulator and the one running on the actual robot was an extra command was added at the start of the one on the robot to only start when the top of the head is tapped.

figure 1. Choregraphe program for the routine.

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.

Picobot - a swarm bot

One of the most interesting small robots on the market is the PicoBot from 4Tronix (http://4tronix.co.uk/blog/?p=708). 

These are small, relatively low-cost robots with a good range of basic sensors based around Arduino. A nice feature is they are quick to put together (5-10 minutes each for the two above).  The size, time to build and the radio modules make them an interesting option for playing with swarm robotics - if only I had the money.

Don't let the swarm robot idea put you off, as small robots to playing with programming they are good in their own right. Being small with the ultrasonic sensors gives them an non-threatening look; add in they have some build it programs to play with (select by buttons on the bot) to get you going without any programming.

Related Links

• Narinder's Swarm Robots
• mbots - graphical programming and Arduino
• Edge following CrumbleBot

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.

cutest computational thinking in the world?

Wonder Workshop (https://www.makewonder.com/) produce the  robots Dash and Dot robots (see picture above). It is hard not to be charmed by these robots, they are cute, easy to use, download the Apps and you are ready to go almost out of the box - and add to this an easy to use but fairly powerful tool for developing programming.

At the time of writing the software is only available for IOS but there are plans for Android. 

Blockly, available as one of apps, can be used to program the robots. It is a simple looking graphical language (simpler looking but similar to Scratch). A simple example (shown opposite) where Dash (the bigger of the two) does things such as  moves forward,  going left, lights change to orange, , left ear changes colour, head moves forward and it roars like a dinosaur. It relatively easy to then add loops and test (such as checking if it's 'friend' Dot is in view). Below is a very short video of Dash moving around until it 'sees' Dot.





It is difficult not to anthropomorphise these, especially when they are left alone they try and attract your attention with noises. They are just fun as well.

Recently, other developers have been producing alternative programming approaches. The Tickle App (https://tickleapp.com/en-us/) has added these robots to their supported devices.

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.