Building a Raspberry Pi Robot and Controlling it with Scratch – Part 1

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Last weekend we ran a workshop at the Digimakers event at @Bristol where we taught people how to program a Raspberry Pi robot with the Scratch programming language. It went really well, and it was amazing to see kids as young as 7 grasp the basics of robot control, and produce some really good control programs. Quite frankly, our careers are obviously in jeopardy once they reach the jobs market. :)

This is the first in a series of posts where we describe the basics of how we built the robot, programmed it and put on the workshop. All of the workshop code, and the workshop worksheet can be found here if people are interested in recreating our work.

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Getting Started with the Dagu Arduino Mini Driver Board

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If you want an affordable way to drive DC motors, to control servos, and to add an ADC to your project, then the Dagu Arduino Mini Driver Board could be well worth a look. It can be hooked up to a Raspberry Pi with a USB cable to provide the hardware interface for a Pi project. Or alternatively, it can be used alone as a much smaller, and cheaper alternative to an Arduino with a motor shield.

Documentation is a bit thin on the ground for this board however, so we thought we’d put together a simple getting started guide, and show you how you can use the Mini Driver to control some motors.

Dagu Arduino Mini Driver

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Early Work on a Raspberry Pi Rover Kit

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We’re going to be running a workshop at the forthcoming Digi Makers @ Bristol event showing people how they can control a robotic rover with Scratch. So we thought we’d share a picture of the Raspberry Pi robot we’ll be using for the event.

The Dagu Explorer PCB which we use to drive the motors on the Rover 5 chassis has a 5V voltage regulator which is rated at 1.5A so we can use that to provide power to the Pi. Not 100% sure yet how well it will cope with both WiFi and when the motors are running at 100%, but it seems very stable with the hardware we’re using for the workshop which is the Raspberry Pi camera and a bluetooth dongle.

Ideally we’d like to develop this into a full blown Raspberry Pi robot kit that we can sell alongside our Seeeduino/Arduino based robot kit, but we’re focussed on delivering a good workshop first. :)

Our expanding collection of Rover 5 robots

Our expanding collection of Rover 5 robots

New Digs

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It’s been really hectic here over the last few days, as we’ve been busy moving into our new offices, but we’re finally in, and can now get back on with making robots. :)

incubator_sign

Incubator sign

We’ve been lucky enough to secure a place in the new Technology Incubator that recently opened at the Bristol Robotics Laboratory. The Bristol Robotics Laboratory is one of the biggest and best robotics laboratories in Europe, and this move gives us much more space, and a much better environment for developing our new products.

dawn_robotics

The new office space

 

Introducing the Rover 5 Seeeduino/Arduino Robot Kit

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Front View

Front View

Well, it’s taken us much longer than we would have liked, but finally, we’re pleased to announce the release of a brand new robot kit based around the popular Rover 5 chassis from Dagu. This robot kit combines the Rover 5 chassis, with a Seeeduino (an Arduino compatible controller board) to give you a complete robot with loads of great features. The kit is easy to assemble, and accessible for beginners, whilst providing the flexibility that more experienced robot builders need to build advanced robotic projects.

We’ve built this kit by combining components that we already sell in our store to create a complete robot. All the components have been selected and tested to ensure that they work well together, and we’ve written a manual describing step by step how to assemble the robot. We’ve also created sample code in the form of a wall following behaviour so that you can get up and running with the robot really quickly.

Back View

Back View

Buying the kit gives you a great saving compared to buying each of the components individually, but even if buying the kit is not for you, because you have some of the components already, we hope that the manual and sample code will provide some useful ideas for your own projects. Check the kit out here, and let us know what you think.

 

 

 

 

New Products

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We’ve recently added some new products to our store. First up are a couple of new Arduino shields from Seeed Studio. We now stock their WiFi Shield and their Relay Shield, so now for almost any application, we probably have an Arduino Shield you can use. :)

Secondly, we’re pleased to announce that we now stock the BerryClip from our friends over at Raspberry Pi Spy. The BerryClip is a small affordable electronics kit that is a great project to get started with on the Raspberry Pi. It consists of LEDs, a switch and a buzzer, and provides a perfect introduction to both software and hardware interfacing.

WiFi Shield

WiFi Shield

Relay Shield

Relay Shield

 

berryclip_2013_03_05

BerryClip

 

Sensors

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One of the main things missing, from the Dawn Robotics webstore up until now was sensors. Which is a fairly glaring omission when you consider that sensors are a large part of what makes a robot, a robot…

Well, we’ve now fixed the problem, with a range of sensors from Seeed Studio. Your robots can now detect walls and obstacles with the Ultrasonic range sensor, navigate with the 3 axis compass, and follow lines using the IR line sensor. For the full range, see the sensor section here.

Ultrasonic Range Sensor

Ultrasonic Range Sensor

Also, one of the other advantages of getting these sensors, is that it now allows us to put together more complete robot kits (the greyed out coming soon items on our main page). These will be bundles which give you all the parts needed for a complete robot, coupled with a discount for buying everything in one go. Hopefully, this will help save money, and reduce some of the confusion for people just getting into this fascinating hobby.

Line Follower Sensor

Line Follower Sensor

Mobile Robot Bluetooth – Adding Bluetooth to the Dagu Adventure Bot

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Mobile robots become much more flexible and fun when you add Bluetooth or some other form of wireless communication to them. You can control them remotely yourself, or connect them to a PC which coordinate the movement of multiple robots, or record data from their sensors.

Now, Dagu’s Adventure Bot is a very versatile robot, and has lots of cool features, but one thing it lacks is wireless control. Well we’re going to put that right, and show you how you can use a Bluetooth module, and the Arduino SoftwareSerial library to get your Dagu Adventure Bot talking wirelessly to your PC and/or your smartphone. We also provide some example code which lets you drive the Adventure Bot around using the most excellent MOBOT BT Car app.

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New Products From Seeed Studio

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Seeeduino V3.0 Atmega 328P

motorshield_03

We’re pleased to announce that we’ve recently become a distributor for Seeed Studio, and as such we now have a brand new range of exciting products that you can use in your robotic projects.

Chief amongst these is the Seeeduino, Seeed Studio’s take on the Arduino, and a number of very useful Arduino Shields. Seeed Studio have really tried to innovate with the Seeeduino, making a number of changes, rather than just blindly ripping off the Arduino design, and as such, it offers a very useful, and affordable controller for your robotic and electronics projects.

That’s not all we have from Seeed Studio though, we have motors, a breadboard power supply and more. So, please, check out the new range, and start planning your next robot. :)