This week we had a lot of fun teaching the kids about robots. We invited along a special guest, Alexander Enoch. Alexander is a robotics expert who has recently set up a company which designs and makes programmable robots for kids. He gave us all a fascinating talk about the field of robotics and introduced us to his latest creation - a walking robot called Marty. We set up a number of robot demonstrations for the kids to experiment with and showed them how easy it can be to make these robots do some really cool things using just a little bit of code.
No doubt the kids have been telling you all about it. You might be left wondering whether they are exaggerating a little when they tell you that they saw a pair of robots playing football (they're not). Anyway, we thought it might be good to provide everyone with a brief run down of everything that we demonstrated, so you have a clearer picture of what the kids got up to. All of the robots we demonstrated on the night are equally suitable for the big kids in some of us too!
No doubt the kids have been telling you all about it. You might be left wondering whether they are exaggerating a little when they tell you that they saw a pair of robots playing football (they're not). Anyway, we thought it might be good to provide everyone with a brief run down of everything that we demonstrated, so you have a clearer picture of what the kids got up to. All of the robots we demonstrated on the night are equally suitable for the big kids in some of us too!
Marty
Marty is a fully programmable, WiFi enabled walking robot. Marty makes learning about programming, electronics, and mechanical engineering a fun and engaging process. He is designed to be customisable with 3D printed parts, and is also completely upgradeable. He is even compatible with the Raspberry Pi. Oh... and did we say that he's REALLY cute?
The makers of Marty gave the kids a demonstration of two Martys playing football and also invited them to try their hand at writing some Scratch code to control a Marty. Price: £100 Availability: Currently taking pre-orders via crowd-funding (IndieGoGo). Expected to be available to ship in March 2017. |
Ohbot
Ohbot is a robotic talking head that can be built and programmed by children aged 7 and up. He has seven motors that enable him to simulate a range of human-like behaviours such as smiling, frowning, talking and blinking. He is programmed using a block programming environment which is very similar to Scratch.
Mackenzie (P7A) gave the kids a brief tour of Ohbot, showcasing the range of movements that he can make using just a little bit of code. The kids were then invited to try their hand at controlling Ohbot's head movements by tilting a BBC Micro:Bit and enhance this demo by writing their own code to attach a behaviour (such as blinking) to a button press on the Micro:Bit. The makers of Ohbot are planning to launch an Ohbot named 'Peaky' into near space from a primary school playground in January. This Ohbot will be programmed to react to the conditions during the flight, with chattering teeth and fears for its safety, the condition of its batteries and an address to humans on Earth all scripted by children. You can follow the progress of the Ohbot in Space project on the maker's website. Price: £120 (kit), £150 (pre-built) Available to order via the maker's website |
Wink & Ringo
Ringo is a super cute pet robot bug packed with goodies including an accelerometer, gyroscope, light sensors, 6 awesome RGB LEDs which you can light up any colour of the rainbow, musical chirper, and more. Everything you need to bring to life a real personality in a digital pet of your own.
Designed and built by a small family-run business in Portland, Oregon. Ringo grew out of a project intended to build just one robot for the maker's kids. However, he soon realised something much greater could be done in producing Ringo for the masses. After the success of releasing Ringo on Kickstarter, he decided to build something smaller and cheaper, and thus Wink was born. We gave the kids a brief tour of what Wink and Ringo can do, explaining how onboard components such as the accelerometer gyroscope & light sensors can be used to great effect in creating interesting bug-like behaviours (see the demo video below for some really cool examples). We then demonstrated how easy it was to change the behaviour attached to a given button on the remote control by tweaking the example code and uploading it to the bug's memory. Price: $US70 (Wink), $US100 (Ringo) Available to order via the maker's US website - you may have to account for shipping fees, VAT and import duties when ordering from the US. |