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So what exactly is a robot?
01 Jan 2015From Wikipedia: “A robot is a mechanical or virtual artificial agent, usually an electro-mechanical machine that is guided by a computer program or electronic circuitry.” That’s super general right! This definition encompasses so much of the day-to-day technology we come into contact with, as well the stuff of movies -...
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Servos
01 Jan 2015So now we will look at how we can use all the lessons we have learned from doing our morse code to help us make something a bit more robot-y, and control a servo motor. Servo motors are used all over the place in robotics. Servo motors are different to...
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Scratch 4 Arduino
01 Jan 2015Scratch 4 Arduino is a custom version of scratch that makes it super easy to get up and running with Arduino programming. This worksheet is going to show you how to get set up and start making your first programs using S4A. For a great little introduction to S4A, check...
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Programming the Arduino
01 Jan 2015Normally, if we wanted to program an Arduino (or any other computer for that matter) we would have to write some code to tell it what to do. This code has to be written in a very specific way so that the Arduino understands exactly what you want it to...
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Paper circuits
01 Jan 2015So we can now control our robot with keyboard commands if we want to. But what if we wanted our robot to have its controls actually built in? Remember our switch from week 1? Let’s have a quick look at it again, and see how it works. When the switch...
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Basic electronics, Ohm's law
01 Jan 2015Electricity is the flow of energy (in the form of electrons), through conductive materials like metal. The three most important properties of electric circuits are Voltage (V), Current (I), and Resistance (R). It’s sometimes quite useful to compare electronic circuits to water being pumped through a piping system, as in...
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Morse Code
01 Jan 2015Some of you last week noticed that with our LED switch, we could send messages in Morse code if we wanted to. This is a really cool idea, so we thought we’d look at it in a bit more detail and see if we can maybe even get scratch to...
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Introduction to the course
01 Jan 2015Who are we? Louis d’Aboville is a teacher, digital tinkerer and toy hacker. He helps to run creative workshops for young people as part of Exploring Senses, and creates interactive projections for a range of events. His special powers include opening portals to other dimensions, and splicing together cast-off toys...