Kids are getting older and more ambitious. So, no wonder, my son after gaining some experience in programming with Scratch wants to get physical. For his upcoming birthday a programmable robot is THE number one on his whishlist.
To make a long story short, it all boils down to a robot which could be controlled by Scratch or any other graphical programming language with a similar concept. A potential platform would be LEGO Mindstorms NXT / EV3 which also gives the possibility to create a myriad of different robots - most exciting! But as the target groups of these sets are educational institutions they definitely exceed a birthday's budget, even with all grandparents and parents joining forces. And to my opinion they are too "ready made" - you can't see the underlying technology and thus you don't get a feeling how to realise projects in the "real world".
On the other hand, the Arduino project is quite famous and I'm impressed how well documented these microcontroller boards are, how easy they are to come by and how many slightly modified clones are around - all of them (Arduinos and clones) with a reasonable price tag. So it seems a good idea bringing Scratch and Arduino together.
This Blog will deal with the advances to create a robot controlled by an Arduino, graphically programmed and - when possible - taking on the idea to use LEGO as the mechanical robotics platform.
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