Short Project Description


Short Project Description


The concept of graphical programming enables teenagers and even younger children with creative access to computers. Scratch, a project of the Lifelong Kindergarten Group at the MIT Media Lab, provides not only the tool, but creates also a very inspiring environment for children, teachers and parents alike.
But sometimes creativity goes beyond creating "only" a program - physical interaction, tangible results become essential.

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 describes the advances step by step of setting up a robot controlled by an Arduino and easily programmed through a graphical enviroment. This project might be interesting to hobbyists, teachers, educators and parents (like me).

To allow for a maximum of creativity and flexibility the robot will use LEGO Technic / Education as the mechanical robotics platform.

Monday, 23 September 2013

The Robotics Platform

The mechanical setup of an Arduino controlled roboter can be done in uncountable ways. In the following I will describe some approaches I investigated in more detail.
  • Based on the well known BOE-Bot, the PARALLAX Robotics Shield Kit presents a kind of "turnkey" kit for an Arduino to move around by itself.
  • Robotics can be as simple as described in WirMachenRoboter.com (the German version of Let's make robots).
  • Following the path using LEGO Technic / Education as a mechanical robotics platform the use of a LEGO Technic kit (mini tow-truck - LEGO 9390) as a mechnical robotics platform is shown in Robot Arduino with several examples.
In my opinion, the only disadvantage of the latter is the very unprotected mounting of the electronics parts. But as LEGO provides the possibility of ordering single bricks, you can easily use special bricks (in this case special beams) to create a protective housing for your Arduino.
With special beam part # 4621555 I found something best described as a flat plate, 5 x 11 holes in extend, two of them can form a mounting plate 10 x 11 holes (7.9cm x 8.6cm) wide, a second set of them a cover. Part # 4540797 is a ladder shaped structure - also 5 x 11 holes (3.9cm x 8.6cm) wide - ideal to form the sides of a housing.



Browsing through LEGO's special beams I also stumbled over part # 4539880 - a rectangular shaped beam which could be used as a mounting frame to servos as its inner spacing of 3 x 5 holes (2.6cm x 4.1cm) fits in length just to standard servos.

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