Junkbots

Capturing some of the tweets about Junkbots at Mozilla Festival 2017 #Mozfest  https://mozillafestival.org/   great Crumble session 2day at #mozfest from @scottturneruon . Micro-egg bots!!! @RedfernElec @Baggiepr Great stepping stone into CrumbleBots! pic.twitter.com/0TZ2vr4Qat — Nic Hughes (@duck_star) October 29, 2017 @AlwaysComputing Look at what you're missing... pic.twitter.com/DrpEAy51r8 — Alan O'Donohoe (@teknoteacher) October 29, 2017 Great day at #mozfest . Till next year. Again met meant inspiring people and saw awesome ideas! Plus anyone I missed! pic.twitter.com/eL52cRIMwE — Nic Hughes (@duck_star) October 29, 2017 Details of the activity can be found at http://bit.ly/2yZ3dZT If you would like to know more about the Junkbots project contact scott.turner@northampton.ac.uk

Guest Blogger Nathaniel Roberts, Nuffield Research Placement Student working at the University of Northampton. Nuffield Research Placement scheme provides students in their first year of a post16 course to work with STEM professionals  http://www.nuffieldfoundation.org/nuffield-research-placements . Toilet Roll Junkbot Nathaniel Roberts Cut a slit in a toilet roll. Cut another toilet roll in half, then arrange the pieces in a T. Feed the bottom of the T into the slit, and tape together. Cut two lines into the edge, and do the same on the opposite side of the circle. Copy this for the other side of the tube. These geared motors from the Camjam EduKit 3 should fit into those gaps. Stick a battery pack to the back, and use crocodile clips to wire it all up to a crumble. The battery pack can connect to the + and - on either side at the top of the crumble, and the motors connect to the + and - of their respective sides of the crumble. Using a Micro...

Three approaches to control it will be considered here: - via Raspberry Pi; - via Micro:Bit -via Crumble controller 1. Raspberry Pi based In this Raspberry Pi based Junkbot design a combination of Python and Pimoroni's  Explorer HAT PRO  are used to control it. Explorer HAT Pro is a good choice, it can control two motors with a library provided to simplify the programming. For this the Junkbot was the one shown above: a drinks can, pen, LEGO bits, motor and broken propellor. Before the Explorer HAT can be used the library needs to be installed via the Terminal and the instructions below curl get.pimoroni.com/explorerhat | bash Python code to control the junkbot is shown below. import explorerhat from time import sleep def spin1(duration):     explorerhat.motor.one.forward(100)     sleep(duration)     explorerhat.motor.one.stop() def spin2(duration):    ...