Bot Bench I'd Rather Be Building Robots

I was approached last week by TechWeek to take part in a competition to design an office device. My device is a fairly simple one, maybe not to make, but certainly to use. What is it? It’s the iPIckU, a RaspberryPi based device to help you pick a volunteer for the job that nobody wants.  The device consists of a ...

Pepijn de Vos, who runs Studle.es, has made all of his building instructions available to everyone for free.  His reason?  Simple: …I concluded that I feel better about sharing them with as many people as possible than sharing them with a handful and making a few bucks. Despite all the effort that went into making them, he’s decided that it’s ...

The people who watched last week’s Webinar, got a glimpse of what’s coming in ROBOTC 4.x.  I’m very excited about this as it will support two new platforms: the VEX IQ and of course the new MINDSTORMS EV3.  I’m currently working on overhauling the Driver Suite, so it will be ready for the launch of ROBOTC 4.x later in autumn ...

Dexter Industries have launched a Kickstarter project for the BrickPi!  Become a backer and get one of these super cool shields for your Raspberry Pi.  I wrote about the BrickPi not that long ago and I think this a really awesome addition to the Raspberry Pi ecosphere! As of writing this article, the project is at almost 25% of total ...

I wrote an article a little while back for the May/June 2013 issue of Robot Magazine entitled “Pointers and Data Structures in ROBOTC”.   You can now download the PDFs for the individual pages here!  I hope you find it useful. [Page 1] [Page 2] [Page 3] You can find the source code for the article here: [LINK].

The BrickPi is Dexter Industries latest project.  It’s an interface board, or shield, for the super popular Raspberry Pi, a cheap ($25) and small but very powerful processor board that runs Linux.  The BrickPi allows you to easily interface your NXT motors and sensors with the RasPi, without having to cut up cables or otherwise damage your precious LEGO parts. ...

There is an exciting new challenge for kids between the ages of 13 and 17.  How can you enter? First you must create a 2 minute video, explaining how you would tackle two global issues that affect Planet Earth.  You also have to outline a plan of how you would use an unmanned rover to explore an new planet, to ...

According to LEGO Education’s US website, they will commence shipping of the EV3 Education kits starting August 1, 2013.  There is no firm date from the retail side.  You can read the full details here: [LINK].

The summer of 2013 is gearing up to be more than just a time for chilling by the pool! The 2013 Summer of Learning is sponsored by Carnegie Mellon’s Robotics Academy and uses their Computer Science Student Network (CS2N) Project to host all training plus resources provided by The Robotics Education Foundation, VEX Robotics Inc., and Robomatter Inc. This summer ...

I’ve been dabbling with Robot Virtual World (RVW) worlds a bit lately.  If you’ve never played with that before then let me take a second to explain it.  RVW is a 3D virtual robotics system made by Robomatter, which allows you to program and control several different robot models, using ROBOTC.  There are many different world or levels that you ...