Over the years I’ve accumulated a fair amount of robot source code — old projects in zip files, folders with broken .git histories, repos that were once on a long-gone GitLab instance. I’ve been working through these archives recently, using AI tooling to help analyse branches, spot untracked files, and work out what’s already on GitHub vs what needs a new home.
This is a safety-related erratum for Learn Robotics Programming 3rd Edition.
This weekend, I once again mentored the robotics activity at the Coder Dojo Kingston University bringing along our fleet of 10 robots for children learning and experimenting with MicroPython.
There is currently a 27% discount on the print edition of Learn Robotics Programming, 3rd Edition on Amazon.com.
Tomorrow my book, Learn Robotics Programming, 3rd Edition, is published, and I am properly excited about this one.
Our Coder Dojo at Kingston University runs a fleet of 11 Raspberry Pi RP2040 robots — a design that evolved from my Robotics at Home with Raspberry Pi Pico book. After a recent session, one robot came back needing repair: a sheared standoff and some wiring attention. I figured I’d document the design while I had it apart.
Another SG90 servo failed on me today.
Following on from my post on i2s playback with Raspberry Pi Pico, this is a write up of the recording lab notes I made in 2023. This was actually the trickier bit - getting an i2s MEMS microphone to capture audio and write it to a WAV file on an SD card. I completed this in 2023, but only got round to writing it up in 2026 - better late than never!
I still hear phrases like “ruining the magic” when it comes to understanding how stuff like technology, natural processes or cosmic phenomena work. However, I’ve a different take on this.
I am currently getting my Tiny Toolkit into a better state, as I use it frequently when doing robot tweaks in the office and out of the lab. This Tiny toolkit is designed for robot repair or improvements, either in my office away from my workshop, or out in the field.
If you have set up a headless Raspberry Pi using Raspberry Pi OS Bookworm, you may have found that the WiFi configuration has changed from previous versions. The trick with putting the SD card into antoher computer and updating wpa_supplicant.conf no longer works, as the file is no longer used.
While writing my book, the 2power USB Power bank I recommended stopped selling, everywhere. It was able to happily power a Raspberry Pi 4 robot, and fit nicely. However it wasn’t perfect in that it would power the robot down while charging.
I’ve been slowly getting my head around the new (FreeCAD 1.0) assembly workbench, and using it to create exploded diagrams for my upcoming book, Learn Robotics Programming Third Edition.
Last night, I got some preparation for today’s Coder Dojo KU Python Robotics activity. These are MicroPython robots based on an RP2040 (the Raspberry Pi Pico chip). The activity is aimed at kids learning to code. I have a fleet of 10 robots, plus 1 more as a demo/test model. It uses some of the principles from my books. These autonomous car type robots are built around the Cytron MakerPi RP2040 control board, with a dual RCWL-1601 sensor for obstacle avoidance, a Maker Line 5-sensor array, and a mini-3 round chassis. The code is written in MicroPython, and the kids write their own code to control them, with us providing activity sheets, reference cards, and helping out if they run into problems.
This weekend, I went to Makers Central at the NEC in Birmingham. And it was a lot of fun!
This week I’ve been having fun, and with a weekend of Makers Social, I’ve more to come.
I’m honoured!
🚀 Pre-order Alert! 🤖
These are surprisingly hard to find. So I’ve made measurements using my digital calipers.
I’ve been working on a robotics mentoring project for Coder Dojo KU. There will be a fleet of 10 of these robots. The current task is to model a sensor bracket that I can print for some RCWL-1601 ultrasonic distance sensors.
I’ve been fixing up my Maplin/OWI Edge USB controlled robot arm. Here’s what I’ve been doing with it.
My python library for the Maplin USB robot Arm has been reasonably popular over the years. However, at one point several years ago, I wanted to move the repository from my dannystaple account into the orionrobots org, so other people in orionrobots, students or helpers, could contribute, review and so on.
I am a frequent user of Micropython. I also have recently been using a Windows desktop (I had been using a Mac for a while).
In the previous particle systems article we built a simple particle system that created raindrops.
I have a lifelong fascination with Particle systems, complementing my robotics. However, it was only a few years ago that I found out how to bring the two together in a Monte Carlo Localization particle filter.
My student is making an entry for the UK Micromouse competition. The competition has a recommended reference robot design for entrants to build, the UKMarsBot. She applied, and was sent the Main board along with the Line sensor and Wall sensor boards.
I have always had an interest in AI. I’ve been running a local OpenWebUi with a local Ollama for a while now, hosting my own AI’s so I can use them with my notes. I’m a long term fan of the Zettlekasten method of note taking and linking, a second brain if you will, so tying that to an AI as RAG (Retrieval Augmented Generation) is a natural fit.
After reading my book Robotics at Home with Raspberry Pi Pico, reader Doug Blanding used the concepts from the book and took it to the next level.
When I’m writing books, articles and blog posts, I often need to create figures, drawings and photos. Here is the process I use to make them.
I have a collection of sample filament. It’s a little vintage, iht some being from Faberdashery, one of the multi colour and transparent sample filament packs. These are great fun, allowing you to try many colours.
I have a complex relationship with ROS, the Robotic Operating System. But let’s start by looking at what it is. For this articles purposes, ROS and ROS 2 are considered as versions of the same basic idea.
I started with what seemed like a simple question: “What Raspberry Pi models and cameras are compatible with each other?” given the context of using the current libcamera/rpicam stack. I found that there was no straight answer on the internet. I went to ask the internet, and nobody came back with a simple answer. So I decided to do some research and write this article to answer this question.
On Sunday, the team got together to discuss and consider how we did in PiWars 2024. The overall view was positive, but we looked at what we can learn and improve upon.
I was asked how I know what all the wires are when I’m working on, or are looking at an old robot.
This week has seen some major progress on the robot. Let’s get into it…
We had only some ideas for lift and grab, but nothing concrete. We had some concept sketches on what we’d like to do. Over the weekend, between the sessions with the whole team, Danny did what he could as we were running out of time for this.
This is a short 5 minute video showcasing the technical and design aspects of Big Ole Yellow (which is mostly granite red) for PiWars 2024.
This week, Danny finally finished printing the FreeCAD designed parts to mount the Nerf Turret onto Big Ole Yellow, using the shiny new BambuLabs A1 Mini printer to get really smooth prints, no warping and warp speed.
I have a Raspberry Pi 4, running Raspberry Pi OS Lite, bookworm. I wanted to connect a bluetooth headset to it so I can record and playback. I needed to get the speakers and microphone working. This is handy for a DIY project like a voice assistant.
This week I finally opened the Pico Bricks kit, which they had sent to me to play with. It is an amazing kit! They sent me the Zero-to-hero kit, which is a great way to get started with the Raspberry Pi Pico.
I’ve been doing a lot of FreeCAD work, including a frustrating case of rebuilding a chassis base, the base of my CAD models, because the original was from a STEP import, and had two major issues:
In my recent book, Robotics at Home with Raspberry Pi Pico, I have used the PIO (Programmable Input Output) system to read the encoders on the robot. Why have I taken this step?
The attachment mounting plate for the robot we’ve been building in my home lab is coming together today.
Our Pi Wars 2024 robot, Big Ole Yellow, will compete in challenges that require different attachments. So far, the ones we have in mind are:
I recently have had a reader having trouble with the electronics in Robotics at Home with Raspberry Pi Pico.
Since the second edition of Learn Robotics Programming was published the Raspberry Pi operating system has moved on. This means that the instructions for installing OpenCV and Numpy are out of date. Here’s the updated instructions for installing OpenCV and Numpy on the Raspberry Pi.
This week I found a helpful guide for people new to crimping wires. Crimping wires is not easy without practice, but also knowing what a good crimp should look like is a start.
Our robot, Big Ole Yellow, originally built in 2019, is being re-purposed for the PiWars 2024 Disaster Zone competition.
Our robot for Piwars 2024, Big Ole Yellow, has a USB cable between the Raspberry Pi and the Pimoroni Yukon, for programming and communicating with the Micropython code running on the RP2040.
The robot I’ve been building and documenting for an upcoming book is using a VL53l5cx sensor for front mounted distance sensing. This sensor is great in that you get an array of 8x8 distance measurements, so a single sensor can do the job of many!
So our robot is wired up, and on a bench power supply, and we have things driving as of last week via the Yukon. Exciting. However, when we tried to switch over to independent power for the motors, it ran out pretty soon. The robot’s motor power is based ona bank of 6 NiMH AA’s, and it is in my roadmap to replace that with 18650’s, but until then, keeping these charged is an important part of maintenance.
I’ve been using React Native and Expo to create phone apps to interact with robots via MQTT, both in PiWars and in preparation for an upcoming robotics book. The benefit being that they can attach to an MQTT broker, and you can control it or get sensor data from it directly on the phone.
We looked at pyinfra, installing services and python serial. Often debugging is not caused by a large theoretical issue but instead some small mistakes/bugs.
If you’ve not come across it, there’s a neat command line tool for working with Micropython and CircuitPython boards called MPRemote - the MicroPython remote control.
My student and I realised how few weeks we had until PiWars. having booked the hotel rooms and train tickets, it became very clear how close it is.
We had an amusing power problem after adding the Yukon to the Big Ole Yellow robot for Piwars 2024.
For my PiWars 2024 robot, and other robotics projects, I’ll occasionally need the 3D printer. I don’t use it for book robots as I’m aware that readers may not have access to a 3D printer, but for the PiWars robots, I like to get into more complicated stuff and use whatever I have at my disposal. With the largest limitation being time.
First off, I want to say a Happy New Year to all my readers. 2024 has started off as I’d like it to with some great things happening.
This week I found time to unbox, review and play with the Elecfreaks Smart Cutebot Pro. This is a robot kit based around the BBC micro:bit, and is a great way to get started with robotics.
This weekend, while doing some research for an upcoming book project, and other robots, I had an interesting challenge.
For the last few months, I had the privilege of being a beta tester for the Pimoroni Yukon board. This meant I got to play with a robotics board with a tonne of features before it was released!
This month I managed to break two items - a motor bracket and a Raspberry Pi Pico W.
This week I’ve been taking photos of a Sparkfun chassis I have been using with my student, and for demonstration purposes.
Today, I came across a paper detailing some interesting robotics sensor technology.
I was sent a link to a GitHub repository with a number of robotics algorithms implemented in Python.PythonRobotics
Today, I trialled PyInfra2 for managing the packages and files on a Raspberry Pi.
I’ve recently started playing with MQTT. My intent is to use it in Python, with the Paho client, on a Raspberry Pi running the Mosquitto broker. I plan to use MQTT in my Piwars 2024 robot so I can have multiple communicating programs, and a channel to send control signals to/from a smartphone too.
In this tutorial, I will show how to use a pair of distance sensors for wall avoiding.
In chapter 11 of Robotics at Home with Raspberry Pi Pico, I introduce the asyncio library, and get this installed on the Raspberry Pi Pico. This is a library that lets you schedule multiple tasks on the Pico. They don’t run in parallel, so much as hand control over to different processes when they are waiting for something.
Today I’ve come across the TMF882x distance sensor series from AMS. I was exploring SparkFun for some sensors for a project.
My student arrived with a few things to fix up. At the last session, we had been trying to get the Adafruit Cricket to work, but had experienced an issue with i2c communication errors throughout. I will take a closer look, but so my student can continue, we swapped that out for a Pimoroni Explorer Hat Pro.
A common chore I find myself doing (and I imagine anyone who has built a few robots) is adapting code they’ve written to many different motor driver or main breakout boards.
I am a regular mentor at a Coder Dojo Kingston University, a place where we mentor children on their journey to learn about programming and technology. I’ve mostly been mentoring in Python there, but they have also had robot tracks, on and off.
Exciting news! This weekend, we have plenty to celebrate, with robots, books and a little Prosecco.
I sometimes have suggestions that the books in my robots are a little expensive to build. They are sub £200, and can be closer to sub £100 if you get clever with parts. Considering that I recommend a number of sensors and encoder read motors, I think they represent good value, but are a bit pricier than a simple Arduino with two wheels on motors.
Say hello to the Raspberry Pi 5!
This week I’ve been reading Lukas Kaul’s robotics book “Practical Arduino Robotics”, and trying the experiments within. Although I am experience with PID control. encoders and the Arduino, it is always useful to read and try the work of other robot builders and see what I learn from it.
Have you wondered about the basics for getting a robot driving? I originally wrote this for a coder dojo worksheet, but it is suitable for anyone getting started.
A week and a half ago, I was asked to make a project to play a sound from an SD card, then record a response and play it back. This required me linking the Raspberry Pi Pico up to a few new devices.
When building a robot, it is important to position sensors where they will be useful in the algorithms running on the robot. Getting it wrong can lead to amusing and odd results.
I’ve recently been specifying changes to a fleet of robots used in my local Coder Dojo. The modified robots would be based on a Raspberry Pi Pico W, and a bunch of sensors.
Line following robots are a great example of autonomous robot behaviour. In this article, I will show you step-by-step how to add a line sensor to a Raspberry Pi Pico robot, how to wire it in, and then how to write Python code for responsive line following on the robot. I include CircuitPython and MicroPython examples.
Today I took the Foam Dart turret I made for my 2020 Piwars robot “Bangers and Bash”, which had some problems around power handling, and having attached it to a Pimoroni Yukon, got it to make sound effects before firing a spread of 5 foam darts. Not sure it is perfect for mowing down Piwars targets in a challenge as the spread is not so much aimed but uniform.
My robotics book, Robotics at Home with Raspberry Pi Pico is currently available with a 20% discount until 31st July 2023!
I have contributed to a feature published this month in The Magpi - the Raspberry Pi Magazine. In it I show how to use a Raspberry Pi Pico with a MeArm robot arm, and use Micropython to program a web controlled robot with step record and playback capabilities
Today, I need to get probing, and find out why the Arduino side wont power up.
Yesterday I made a block diagram of the Piwars Robot. With an understanding of the connections, and not fearing that they will damage the Raspberry Pi, I can power it up and test it.
Today I took the diagrams I made over the past few days and put them into a block diagram. I used Excalidraw to make the diagram.
In the last post, I looked at the Raspberry Pi Electronics in the robot. Today I’ll look at the Arduino side.
The robot I am repurposing for Piwars 2024 is repurposed from my 2019 robot Big Ole Yellow. This used a Raspberry Pi with an perma-proto hat. Before turning it on, I needed to understand the wiring, if it make sense or was the correct polarity. Simply powering this up if wires have gone awry could lead to damaging parts. Most connectors here are the locking polarised type, so I can be confident those are in the right way. However, some are just Duponts which could easily be in reversed. These are 4 way Duponts though, so could only be wrong one way. They also have a red-marked wire on them.
The robot “Big Ole Yellow” has been sat on a shelf since Piwars 2019 gathering dust. That means none of it has been powered on, so some inspection and testing is needed before we can start working on it. The current initiatives list has Up and Running as the first step.
I thought it would be fun to make a specs card for the robot I am entering into Piwars 2023.
Piwars 2024 - Disaster Zone was recently announced by the PiWars team, and we’ve decided to make an entry.
This weekend my robotics student and I set up a pair of MeArms to play pass-the-parcel. This was lots of fun and took a few tries to get right.
We’ve been playing recently with a MeArm Maker robot arm. Our current experiments include a Wifi enabled Raspberry Pi Pico-W version, and using a web server running on the PicoW to record arm positions, then smoothly interpolate while playing them back to create smooth motion.
Last week, I made a live talk about the robots in my lab, showing each one and discussing difficulties along with how I would improve each of them. I show where each has further areas to work on, what I’ve learned so far from each. These robots include Raspberry Pis, Raspberry Pi Pico’s, Arduino’s, and ESP8266s. There’s a hexapod, a buggy with an arm on board, my various PiWars entries, and more. This was also recorded from my new lab.
A common question from readers of Robotics at Home with Raspberry Pi Pico is why I recommend stores like Pimoroni, Adafruit and The Pi Hut over the generic items on Alibaba and AliExpress.
If you are based in the UK here is an item shopping list suitable for building a robot as shown in the Robotics at Home with Raspberry Pi Pico book. These are made using ThePiHut, a reputable UK electronics vendor with a broad selection and Amazon. You could definitely find parts cheaper on eBay or Alibaba, however you will have longer lead times and the quality will vary.
📕Today my new book “Robotics at Home with Raspberry Pi Pico” is out 🎉! The last year and a half of work, with research into Raspberry Pi Pico PIO, hand tool chassis build techniques, probability and Monte Carlo has finally paid off with the book available.
Today is Pi day. As in the number 3.141592, and also the Raspberry Pi.
Today I’ve cut two more styrene chassis plates for building the robot rover from Robotics at Home with Raspberry Pi Pico. This article has paid links.
I am currently tutoring two children in robotics, which means practical and fun lessons ranging among a number of skills:
I have now finished writing my upcoming robotics book, “Robotics at Home with Raspberry Pi Pico”. It is now going to print, available from the 17th of March, 2023.
A Bluefruit BLE UART Friend (Bluetooth BLE) can add Bluetooth BLE to a project, with support in a Bluefruit Connect App to visualise data. Ulab is an implementation of parts of Numpy and SciPy for microcontroller Python interpreters, like CircuitPython and Micropython. This project uses CircuitPython, but similar issues would be seen in Micropython.
The VL53LnX series sensors from ST are popular distance sensors.
What have I currently been working on? As part of my work on Robotics at Home with Raspberry Pi Pico I discovered a problem in CircuitPython with the traceback module, although it was perhaps more of a misunderstanding on my part.
Sky News have published Sniffer dogs, beware: Scientists give robot a sense of smell. This sensor has come from Tel Aviv University in Israel.
I’ve written books, articles, blog posts and made youtube videos. I’ve decided to make a place where my community can contact me to get support, talk about these robot materials, ask me questions, give me feedback, or feed into other books and content.
Maker Rue Mohr recently suggested building a motion tracking workbench lamp. This is a great idea, as if you are moving around on the bench, and you need light focusing on where you are working, you could have the device adjust the focus for you.
When taking photos of robots, nearly everything is Macro - that is, every shot is fairly close up. What this often means is that I get focus issues.
In yesterday’s Maixsense A010 post I had reached a block, and it hadn’t worked either standalone, or via the serial port.
The Sipeed Maixsense A010 is a 100x100 depth camera/sensor - using optical time-of-flight (TOFL) to get a picture that represents a depth field view of a room. This is a pretty exciting idea to me - it’s inexpensive (less than £100), solid state - not spinning, and small.
I am currently working on a motion model for a robotics localisation system, more details of which will be in an upcoming book.
Sometimes, the best way to get all the little website fixes I want to get done on orionrobots, is to have a bigger harder task I am procrastinating from instead…
This week I had reason to revisit Why we are using AA batteries when working on battery storage. I was looking at the batteries I have, and how I store them, and how I keep track of them. I’ve been using the same batteries for a while, and I’ve been using the same charger for a while. If you are learning robotics at home, battery choices are important, and I thought I’d share my thoughts on this.
When I’m testing robots, I tend to use a lot of AA batteries. My preference is to use NiMH rechargeables. One issue is that the charger I have can only charge four, while some of my robots may use 12. So I have to charge them in batches. See Why we are using AA batteries for why I use AA batteries when building robots.
Today I’m trying out a freecad weekly build. I’ve been doing a lot in TechDraw, and needed to replace a view, but all the annotations are behind the view. I’m hoping the weekly build has the view stacking implementation for https://github.com/FreeCAD/FreeCAD/issues/6012 so I can get the annotations in front of the view.
I was playing more with foam board today. I’ve used it before to make drawer dividers, but at 10mm it gets interesting. This is a rough (rabbet I think) joint I made with it, because why not.
Arg, in FreeCAD I split 2 edges in a sketch and hit what I assume is a topological renaming nightmare. Happened 3 or 4 times this week. My workflow has been sheet to master sketches, to shapebinders in bodies, to pads.
Storage is one those problems for those learning robotics at home - where to put all the bits of different sizes. You need tiny little boxes for components like electronics, larger ones to contain and transport robots.
I’m getting intimately familiar with Gaussian probability and generating them, along with combining matplotlib and asyncio for pc visualising.
Tonight, while working on diagrams for Robotics at Home with Raspberry Pi Pico I’ve found a whole new menu of goodness built into #Inkscape for manipulating paths - use the menu paths->path effects, then click + and you get the following toolbox!
Jarkman, the person who inspired my tiny toolkit suggested making and 3D Printing a tray so the bits are less likely to escape into the toolbag. This is building on the Drill bits holder I made yesterday.
Today is day 2 of the Piwars Raspberry pi Robotics competition, with autonomous and manually driven robots by beginners, intermediate and pro robot builders.
Today I needed to create a graph for my upcoming book Robotics at Home with Raspberry Pi Pico.
This weekend, the PiWars 2022 event is in full swing. Teams have submitted videos of their robots in action. All the robots are based around a Raspberry Pi, with school teams and home teams of different experience levels, competing with ingenious mechanisms, great design, autonomous code or manual driving. I’m really enjoying watching it!
Inspired by social media user Jarkman, I decided to start making a mini portable robot toolkit.
I’ve been trying to make it easier for me to post to the site.
My upcoming book on Pico robotics has a section on FreeCAD, and I’ve been using it to make the parts for the book.
The NINA firmware allows an ESp32 to act as a Wireless bridge/network interface for any SPI connected microcontroller, for example a Raspberry Pi Pico, or an Arduino.
My robotics/Raspberry Pi books Learn Robotics Programming, and Learn Robotics Programming - Second Edition takes the approach that using a network to connect to a robot makes it easier to program, configure or update it, also freeing the robot from being tethered to a screen, keyboard and mouse.
These last few months, I’ve been working on things related to an upcoming Raspberry Pi Pico robotics book. The current few weeks have been relating to using an add on Wifi solution.
If you are doing a lot of programming with the Raspberry Pi Pico, especially with a mobile platform like a robot, then you will be frequently unplugging your Pico.
When using FreeCAD’s assembly4 workbench, have you seen broken object links after moving a file? Here’s how I came across the issue, diagnosed it and a fix for it.
Pimoroni have a wireless pack for Raspberry Pi Pico. This adds wifi capability with an ESP32 (and possibly bluetooth, more on that later). Wifi capability is great because it means I can teleoperate (remote drive) my robots, even if it’s just starting behaviors. In Learn Robotics Programming I have a chapter showing how to crate a nice web interface and remote camera/driving app to take advantage of Raspberry Pi 3a+ wifi. It’s something I’ve taken to adding to most of my robots. But what about Pico robots?
To get better access to tools in my closest drawer, I make dividers with foam core and hot glue.
This weekend, I got an optical laser based distance sensors or two working with the Raspberry Pi Pico with Micropython. I managed to get a single one working, after some frustration with the XSHUT pin, and then I managed to get 2 of the devices working. Some GPIO trickery with the XSHUT pin, and there are multiple VL53L0x sensors working.
The Learn Robotics Programming books use a laser cut motor kit, and these usually come with the cheap yellow plastic motors, aka TT Motors. These motors are ubiquitous, but are not really the best of gear motors. The kits that include these can be found around the world. There kits also used to come with wires soldered on the motors, but in recent years, probably for cost reasons, manufacturers are just selling the kits with the wires not soldered, or without them at all.
When building robots with many sensors and actuators, it’s not hard for the wiring to start to get out of hand and resemble a rats nest. This causes a number of problems:
I’ve been playing with the Raspberry Pi Pico a lot lately, and Mini_orionrobots (aka Helena) joined me. In this article, I’ll examine what we got running with the Pico and how the session went.
The second edition of Learn Robotics Programming is now for sale. Readers have been asking for a shopping list for this book. This is for the robot hardware components. I can follow up with a tools article if necessary. This article has paid links.
Further to my recent announcements about the publication of my book, Learn Robotics Programming second edition I have made a video talking about the books features, showing demonstrations of the robot you’ll build in action.
Today I attended the fantastic Pi Wars Conference 2021, and among the talks was Martin O’Hanlon with the Bluedot project. I followed along, had a few problems, and created two versions of a controller for the arm.
This week I was interviewed by Packt Publishing, the publisher of Learn Robotics Programming second Edition, on how my experience with writing the book has been.
Hello, I’ve some great news.
Voice Assistants like Mycroft are a cool bit of technology, and running them on the Raspberry Pi seems like a great fit. The Seeed Studio ReSpeaker hat, and it’s clones seem to be an inexpensive way to get this running, however, none of the instructions I found on the web got this to work. So here I document how I made this device work.
I have been asked by some readers of my book, Learn Robotics Programming (first edition), what parts I’ve specifically used for chapter 6.
My Piwars 2020 robot, Bangers 'N Bash, is built around a Raspberry Pi 3A+ sporting a Pimoroni Explorer Hat Pro on top. I’ve been building a Nerf turret and attached it to the top of the robot. However, this comes with some electronic considerations.
The EevBlog, aka the Electronics engineering video blog is a Video blog about electronics engineering. That is, a Youtube channel with original content that is intended for people who like to dabble with all thinks electronics.
If you bought one of those cheap (£30) robot arms from Maplin a few years back (when there still was a Maplin) or find yourself in possession of one now, changes to Windows have made it feel like a bit of a paperweight.
While discussing my book with one of my readers, an error in the circuit diagrams, replicated in a number of them, has been spotted. I am writing this article as a correction to those errors.
I’ve finally designed a USB Battery mount for my PiWars 2019 robot. I designed the mount in Fusion 360, and this is the first iteration that I can 3D print. This article contains paid links.
Over the last few months, I have been busy modelling parts of a PiWars 2019 robot. I am a reserve team, which means I may not make the main line up, but I still take this seriously enough to make sure I have built a robot for it.
This week, I’ve seen a new product range, the LuMini LED’s by Sparkfun (available in most sparkfun resellers). These are addressable RGB LED’s.
My Learn Robotics Programming book was written around the Raspberry Pi 3b+, however it did note that other Pis would work.
On Tuesday the 17th January 2019, I gave a talk at Richmond New Technology on Creative Technology with Hobby Robotics where I made clear that robotics is about three main ideas:
For this week, my book Learn Robotics Programming is available for $5 at the Packt Publishing website for an ebook copy.
For many years, I’ve made-do with the kit made Reprappro Ormerod 2 printer. It was a platform for learning about these devices, but has never been that reliable, and never earned my trust enough to confidently leave for long prints. I made small prints and rarely on it.
I was pretty quiet over the summer, however, I made some videos showing what I’ve been up to.
Tonight I am proud to announce that available to buy in most online bookshops is my new book, Learn Robotics Programming.
Jonathan and I brought our robot to Piwars - the converted Skittlebot now on a tank tracks platform adapted from the Excavator RC toy came along with us.
As we realise how close we are to going to the event, panic Sets In. 2 days before we leave! Our robot should be ready for the 22nd of April - not everything works!
I am now in the final days before my PiWar 2019 journey, where I will be a reserve for the competition with my robot.
So throughout my build, I’ve been repeatedly thinking of a feedback system for the robot.
After changes to the robot hardware, a new software SD card image and lots of work on the robot, I needed to get the camera going again. It seems that the parts I’d not been paying attention to were now broken.
Now that the controller is working, we need to have a rough plan on how we want the buttons to control the robots behaviour.
The last few days I’ve been trying to get my PS3 DualShock controller working with the Approx Eng Input library for python.
Today I got the kids involved making - and we had some fun getting the motor cables the right way. However, the stall outs, or lock ups troubled me.
I wanted to look at some of my older Lego robotics projects and work again, and perhaps render or interact with them in a different way. I’ve been using OpenSCAD for a while, and I wanted to see if I could convert some of my LDraw files to OpenSCAD. This was also related to adding Lego assemblies to non-Lego robots for some modular robot designs.
Orionrobots has undergone a bumper year in 2017 - it’s only looking back at the whole year that I start to think about what we did, and what to expect in 2018.
A Printed Circuit Board is the normal system for holding components together in a circuit.
There are crazy sales this weekend at some of my favourite places to buy stuff to play with. Pimoroni, The PiHut and Cool Components are all having fun.
Skittlebot based on the Initio chassis may actually be a little slow to be a piwars bot, but it’s certainly a great platform to get the basics down.
This week, I’ve started building an esp8266 based hexapod, which I’ve nicknamed “SpiderBot”.
The ESP8266 is one of my favourite devices. I wanted, for various projects, to attach a Joystick to it.
I now have my Raspberry Pi based computer vision demonstration robot working! This is a big step forwards, as I can start looking at more interesting projects and competitions with it.
Skittlebot is designed using the 4Tronix initio robot base. It is built around a Raspberry Pi for remote control, and for experiments with computer vision.
In March 2017, I attended the Raspberry Pi Birthday party in Cambridge. While there, all attendees got a goodie bag each day. In my goodie bag was the rather awesome Pimoroni Scroll PHat - a Raspberry Pi Zero sized hat which uses an I2C chip to control a grid of LED’s, allowing you to scroll messages or graphical stuff across them.
In my previous post, I mentioned getting the Kitronic V2 motor board for
First I have some goodies for the lab - for Helena, the Explorer Hat Pro Parts Kit and a Kitronic Motor Board for her to use with her microbit.
I found today, on Christmas jumper day, I was caught short and couldn’t find a good jumper.
I’ve published a video where my son and Lab Helper Jon and I use the tool
The 4tronix Unotron robot is an unusual but fun design for a robot chassis. It uses a DC motor for one wheel at the back, and has
It probably will not come as a shock, but some Lego on ebay is fake.
A crimping tool is an essential part of an electronics hobbyists toolkit. While
Bounce is a visual programming language based on Block.ly for the esp8266.
This week I built a simple robot base using a NodeMCU V3 dev board - an ESP8266 based board broken out for use with a breadboard,
The ESp8266 is currently my favourite toy right now. I’ve mostly been using NodeMCU, but also experimented with Micropython.
A table showing the operation of a Boolean logic gate, or combination of them.
Abbreviation for Analog to Digital Converter.
I’ve been learning to do stuff with the esp8266 in the past month or so, and I’ve finally got all the video from it uploaded. In the video series for this, I take the 8266 on the esp-01 board, and get it flashed with Lua/NodeMCU firmware, and then use this to serve a web page that controls an LED - a web connected lamp.
If you are working with small devices, you will need power supplies for them. 5v is generally easily supplied by a USB port (be careful here - get it wrong, and you may damage your laptop). 3.3v needs a few tweaks.
I started this by wanting to test all my servo motors, to see that they worked, and if any in my robot cupboard had been modified for continuous rotation. None had. However, I had a 6v, 4xAA power supply that I intended for use in building a robot with the esp8266. After demonstrating the motors, my little one asked “why does it need to be connected to the laptop if it already has batteries?”
Lego is probably the best known brand of Construction Toy. Lego has had the largest fanbase, including the well known Lugnet site.
This week I built a Lego Technic bike after one of my children asked me how a bicycle worked.
Today I had time with my eldest child, 5 at the time of writing. She has been learning python, and experimenting with Turtle with me for a while, but I always typed in the turn numbers as angles are a bit difficult for a young child. To clarify - this is the Python turtle module.
So first some great news.
The HC-SR04 is a simple but capable distance sensor. It is able to sense a 30 degree range, using 2 IO pins on your microcontroller. They are sensitive from 4cm’s to around 3 meters, with sub-centimeter measuring accuracy.
My first attempt at an enclosure was wrong in a number of ways.
After Pycon UK, I continued work on armbot. Armbot needed reassembling, as being so big, it has to have the wheels and arm unbolted for transporting.
This information is for reference and information only. Orionrobots has no association with the Tekno Robot puppy - we do not sell or manufacture them.
The Leonardo is an electronics module that allows you to easily build gadgets with some control and circuitry.
I’ve been toying with different ways to make adding the sensor to the robots easier.
Stores to find robot kits, electronic boards, motors and supplies for making or building your own gadgets used to be hard to find. I’ve collected a list of those I have found useful or plain fun here.
After playing with a few different types of CAM software, I settled on Heeks CNC.
I will fill in more details about the last few weeks, and about me getting some of my first cuts from my CNC Milling machine, building a dust cover, and publishing videos.
Note: The Orion Explorer 1 Kit is no longer for sale
After some investigation, it turned out that more than the FET was blown and the 7812 voltage regulator was gone, along with the fuses.
The most interesting robots for me are those involved in exploration, fabrication and repair.
I bought a robot kit with pan servo sensor mechanism - I built it, and started playing with it in my lab to see what I make of it.
Orionrobots has always been about self learning and building your own stuff. Our robot kits are designed for you to build which has the knock on effect that you already know how some repairs can be made. Too many products have “no user serviceable parts inside” - something which makes you feel like this device is not really yours and you just have it on loan until it breaks - where you may be able to pay someone to fix it, or worse still, have to dispose of it and get a new one. This is both wasteful and disempowering.
A customer recently asked if the robot would be able to drive over obstacles - like door plinths, and if it could cross gaps. The only good way to answer this was to try it out - so I did.
For those wanting to give a robot as a gift - Tuesday the 17th will be the last day we will be able to take Uk mainland orders that can be delivered for Christmas. The Orion Explorer 1 Ultrasonic Bluetooth Deluxe Robot Kit is selling fast though - you may need to get that order in soon!
Google may be joining its Robotic Car efforts with other robot building, announcing that it has now acquired 7 robotics companies. It is looking a humanoid robots, robot arms, holonomic wheels, 3d computer vision among other areas in robotics. This is definitely exciting times to be building robots! This is in the same week that we got to know about Amazon testing delivery drones.
How do you combine an Arduino robot with a Bluetooth module? We’ve built a kit based on this, and played with it in the Orionrobots lab.
I’ve been buying other robot kits to experiment with - one with car-like steerable front using a servo and single drive motor, another with solid plastic wheels and a grid system for prototyping on. Both are also based on Arduino, and both being considered for upgrades or alternatives with the Explorer 1 kit system.
2020: This kit is no longer available.
Some of the current trends in robot locomotion and movement are astounding.This video captures the last decade in robotics in half an hour with lots of different cool stuff from labs all over.
The Explorer 1 can be extended fairly simply. Here is how to build a bump sensor that looks a little like insect antenna for the robot. It uses 2 IO pins on the Arduino, and needs 1 power pin. This can be done with parts from the kit, a bit of piano wire, a screwdriver and some pliers!
An Automaton is a kind of robotic or animated toy. They tend to exhibit fairly complex and anthropomorphic (human or animal like) behaviour.
This group is behind the roomba and My Real Baby and was founded, among others, by Rodney Brooks of MIT.
This week I had a rather nice mailbag of cool robotic and electronic parts.
As a Renaissance artist, inventor and scientist, Leonardo Da Vinci lived a hundred or more years ahead of his time. He was born on April 15, 1452 in Vinci, Italy. Hence “Da Vinci” - translates of “Of Vinci” - a town just outside Florence. His full name was, in fact, “Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci” - Leonardo - Son of Piero of Vinci. His father was a wealthy and renowned man in the area.
Maplin Electronics had taken the place in the UK of Tandy and Radio Shack.
A solderless breadboard is a great way to throw together prototypes rapidly.
Modding is a term abbreviating modification.
A good way to learn new skills in robot building and related subject is to use a tutorial, following it (or skipping it) until you have what you need to continue a project then modding away and making up your own.
If you are starting out in robotics, or you have been building robots and want to get past the basics quickly, robot kits are an excellent way to start, and to keep going. Taking a kit, building it, understanding it and then modifying it is the best way to give any robot project a head start.
The Association For The Advancement of Artificial Intelligence was founded in 1979 and is involved in actively debating and organising events and conferences related to this diverse field.
I’ve now got some footage of the Explorer 1 using a pair of sonar distance modules (HC-SR04’s) to avoid walls and drive around the floor. This is just experimentation, so they are mounted with sticky tac, and wired in with some odd bit of breadboard I had, but it was working brilliantly here. The robot has an Arduino and uses AA batteries.
A question that I have been asked a few times now is why the Orion Explorer 1 Robot kit uses an AA battery box and not some customised battery solution.
Today I’ve seen some truly amazing ideas for robotics and space exploration. The basic idea was to send up a 3D printing system, and use the in-situ materials to construct a moon base.
The sonar distance sensor modules are now on order, and I will be testing them out to interface with the Arduino on the Explorer Robot 1 kit. Once I am happy with them, they will be going on the store, along with links and info on getting them going.
NOTE: The shop is now closed - this is historic information.
Robot Wars was brilliant. While it was preaching to the converted with me, it has inspired many people into building robots. SyFy’s new addition, “Robot Combat League”, is what we now have a decade later.
Electronic machines have played a part in music for around half a century now, although this has mostly been in the form of synthesizers, electronic effects modules and the like. Some have been completely electronic instruments - like the awesome Eigenharp, the sci-fi classic soundtrack of a theremin and the slightly embarrassing Stylophone.
Lego is probably the best toy company in the world. For making robots, houses or just playing about.
Craig Charles hosted Robot Wars as well as playing David Lister in the British sci-fi comedy Red Dwarf.
This kit comes with a number of press out cardboard bits, a small two direction remote chassis and a small book.
I’ve been spending far more time with Arduino based robots, and far less time with Lego, but I have been wondering about interfacing the Arduino, with it’s many interfacing capabilities, with Lego.
I love this video - it brings together two of my favourite things - homebrew hacked robots and music/rhythm experimentation. It uses the Picaxe controller board, caterpillar tracks, and a sonar distance sensor.
These were designed for children to learn about STEM and robotics with Lego, in the disguise of secret agent games.
A Lego maker has built a Lego walker based only on pneumatics. This build contains no electronics or programmable bricks at all. Granted, there is likely a non-Lego air compressor for the build.
The Loginway PIC-01 board is a handy board for developing microcontroller projects. By it’s name, it’s clearly intended for a microchip PIC. It has LEDs, buttons, a serial port, potentiometer, LCD screen (hitachi type interface) and a big chunk of breadboard. Great for just trying out bits of code and learning microcontroller stuff with.
The arrival of Lego Mindstorms kicked off a wave of Lego innovation, but not all of that used official Lego Mindstorms kits. Some creations were just motors strapped onto curious contraptions, the most interesting being the Rube Goldberg devices, kinetic sculptures, rolling ball machines and similar.
Computer memory was once built by hand. Building your own like this memory will help to understand the principles of the system, and experiment with it.
I’ve been considering building my own pick and place machine, CNC or similar manufacturing gear for some time.I had considered Lego as a material for fun.
A flying vehicle using a vertically(as opposed to horizontally) orientated Helical Blade - or propeller. That is - it acts in a vertical plane to maintain the height of the vehicle. It is this that allows helicopters to move in a very different way from a jet based plane. A jet, or forward based prop plane is not usually able to hover, or affect a vertical take of and landing (VTOL), with a few notable exceptions.
Why not be inspired to make a halloween costume based on your favourites - either from Sci fi or even reality. Here are 2 ways to build a chicken walker - one as a robot, one as a costume. Enjoy!
One of the things occurring in modern robotics is that they are increasingly being used to wage in wars by the richest nations. This benefits them in not having to sacrifice men on the front line, as well as being able to send robots for painstaking sweeping/searching missions where the robot will spot things a person may not be able to see.
The IEEE Spectrum has an article this month on 3d printers, and how they are still not quite the vision of desktop manufacture myself, and others would like them to become:
Those who have followed me for some time may know that one of my bugbears for robotics, electronics and lego was finding an effective way to store many small components, not waste space, but have them easily retrievable.
Since I have written plenty on the Lego RCX, I have decided to distil the many different articles into one article in one place.
NQC - Not Quite C - A programming language for the Lego RCX
The ASUS Eee PC is a small netbook laptop, which seemed about the right size to balance on a medium robot. The Aurorans, a London based gathering of robot builders, suggested that the participants start building a robot. I thought this was a great opportunity to try this out in practice.
These robots were built as learning platform by the late William Grey Walter in the 1940s.
The Lego Bionicle 8539 Manas set contained two IR remote controlled Crab like battle bots. The remote control units at the centre of the set each take three AA batteries, and have two fixed motors. The remote control units each also take 3 AA batteries.
The RCX requires a 9v power source capable of delivering a current of around 30mA.
Mindstorms is the Lego companies system of robotic construction sets, which are great for kids and adults, and serve to entertain as well as educate. Sets/devices included are:
Famous Sci Fi robots, Replicants and Cyborgs
A Happy New Year to all my readers.
The East Finchley Robotics Club ran from 2004-05.
I have still been at work on my Lego Lathe. This is the first in a series of automatic construction/fabrication/workshop robots that I want to build. It has been photographed during it’s construction, and I will be putting those, along with it’s plans, onto OrionRobots.
It seems that a lot of people are trying to customise the idea of clocks recently. I’ve recently seen a screen scraping train clock, an incredible motorised moving clock and you only need to look around to see many people are building variants on clocks.
Just to prove anything can be possible with some Lego, possibly a little modification and a lot of creative spirit, a chap over at Found Photography actually built a working real Pinhole camera, with film winder and everything using Lego.
This is theoretically possible although I have not seen it or done it yet.
When a signal is converted from Analog to Digital, it will no longer be identical to the original signal. The signal will be approximated to the nearest digital step in time, and in value.
Halloween presents a great time to build and exhibit some scary animatronic creatures. In fact, some of the robotics kit that is now taken for granted was developed for movies using animatronic techniques.
