Robots in School

Another example of the Robots in School - robot arm in use at St Luke's Primary, Duston, Northampton. For more details about the project go to  Robot in School project sponsored by Santander UK Our digital leaders have our robotic arm up and running this lunch time. pic.twitter.com/sZNRO2Kusg — St Luke's Primary (@DustonStLukes) November 29, 2016 I am grateful to Santander UK for the funding; CBiS Education for their support and advice so far; last but not least the schools who have enthusiastically expressed an interest in taking part. All views are the authors.

@scottturneruon year 5 have a moon mission with their robotic arm today! We have to sort the radioactive rocks to save the moon! pic.twitter.com/5mj716fRlO — Stacey (@Tiffybum) November 17, 2016 I love it ! @Tiffybum @scottturneruon this is incredible ! — CBiS Education (@cbiseducation) November 17, 2016 The Robots in School project is about providing, on a one year loan a set of robot arm kits in Schools (primary or secondary), and for them to play, come up with ideas around them and then share the ideas - http://robotschools.blogspot.co.uk/2016/06/start-of-project.html . Ten sets of robot arm kits were made available. I am grateful to Santander UK for the funding; CBiS Education for their support and advice so far; last but not least the schools who have enthusiastically expressed an interest in taking part. All views are the authors.

The Robots in School project is about providing, on a one year loan a set of  robot arm kits in Schools (primary or secondary), and for them to play, come up with ideas around them and then share the ideas - http://robotschools.blogspot.co.uk/2016/06/start-of-project.html .  Ten sets of robot arm kits were made available. An interactive map below shows the schools who are part of the project. I am grateful to Santander UK for the funding; CBiS Education for their support and advice so far; last but not least the schools who have enthusiastically expressed an interest in taking part. All views are the authors.

CBiS Education Cardboard2Code Module 1 : Cardboard robot arm. To find out more go to:  http://www.cbis.education/cardboard2code_module1 'via Blog this' All opinions in this blog are the Author's and should not in any way be seen as reflecting the views of any organisation the Author has any association with. Twitter @scottturneruon

I was asked recently if the USB robot arm could be programmed - I knew the answer was yes. The Arm came from the CBiS Education Robot Arm kit ( http://www.cbis.education/Product-Details.aspx?prodid=2  ) which comes with a Raspberry Pi and SD Card with software to control the Arm. So the question has become -  How do I program it in Python from scratch ? Well, the honest answer is I don't I use what others have done before. A good  starting point is this site  http://www.wikihow.com/Use-a-USB-Robotic-Arm-with-a-Raspberry-Pi-(Maplin) , it gives most (pretty much all) of the answer, including where to get the pyusb library need; setting it up (be careful don't use the  zip file but the tar.gz version  - you might need to scroll down the screen to do this) and an example. A second source that was very useful  was   http://notbrainsurgery.livejournal.com/38622.html?view=93150#t93150  which contains an explanation of the 'triples' (for example  [32,0,0] ) used to select w

On 13th August a robot arm kit and myself went to a Pi Jam in Birmingham (https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/eagle-labs-raspberry-jam-tickets-26066064300#) at the Eagle Lab in Birmingham. In the background of one of the pictures below you can see a glimpse of the arm, though three people are using or discussing it the time. Our first RaspberryPi Jam was a success! Big thanks to @Warksraspijam for running the jam, a taste of events to come pic.twitter.com/rrC2ubda3U — Eagle Labs Bham (@eagle_labs_bham) August 15, 2016 Eagle Labs Raspberry Jam talks from @scottturneruon @mruktechreviews @martinohanlon pic.twitter.com/aTuoP8GKk5 — CovAndWarksRaspiJam (@Warksraspijam) August 21, 2016 One of the questions that came up, was how to use the arm without proprietary software. To answer that I have had a go using Python to control the arm see the following for more details  http://robotsandphysicalcomputing.blogspot.co.uk/2016/08/usb-robot-arm-control-with-python-and.html . I

Some great work carried out by @scipiguy at Wollaston School @scipiguy @scottturneruon @Raspberry_Pi brilliant!!! — CBiS Education (@cbiseducation) July 28, 2016 Thanks to @cbiseducation and @scottturneruon for the loan of the @Raspberry_Pi powered robot arm. The children were buzzing with pleasure 😃 — Steve (@scipiguy) July 28, 2016 @cbiseducation @scottturneruon This group managed 2 grab 3 bits of 'space debris' from the 'spacestation' in 5 mins pic.twitter.com/HK185m2AR3 — Steve (@scipiguy) July 28, 2016 @scipiguy @scottturneruon @Raspberry_Pi brilliant!!! — CBiS Education (@cbiseducation) July 28, 2016 @cbiseducation @scottturneruon @Raspberry_Pi This young lady worked out an overhead throw was quicker than rotation. pic.twitter.com/reY82TaDCn — Steve (@scipiguy) July 28, 2016 I am grateful to Santander UK for the funding; CBiS Education for their support and advice so far; last but not least the schools who have enthusiastically

@scottturneruon @kay_simons Been looking at @cbiseducation robot arm. Added @pimoroni VESA mount to monitor #tidy pic.twitter.com/MUpjcCNQQi — Steve (@scipiguy) July 3, 2016 OmniVESA details can be found at:  https://shop.pimoroni.com/products/omnivesa Great morning at @StandensBarnPS junkbots, @Parrot + @tickleapp drone, @cbiseducation robot arm and @Raspberry_Pi - thank you the invite. — Scott Turner (@scottturneruon) June 30, 2016 I am grateful to Santander UK for the funding; CBiS Education for their support and advice so far; last but not least the schools who have enthusiastically expressed an interest in taking part. All views are the authors.

Does this count as STEAM? @scottturneruon @HelenCaldwel @STEMatUN @JeanEd70 pic.twitter.com/Qh4pefZt04 — Stacey (@Tiffybum) June 28, 2016 The map below shows the schools who are part of the project. I am grateful to Santander UK for the funding; CBiS Education for their support and advice so far; last but not least the schools who have enthusiastically expressed an interest in taking part. All views are the authors.

Two weeks into the start of the Robot Arm in Schools project and the number of kits available is dropping steadily now. Six Northamptonshire Primary schools and two Secondary school now have the kits in most parts of the county. I am looking forward to seeing what happens with the kits, from the discussions with the schools, it is going to be interesting. @scottturneruon @santanderuk student getting excited about using robot arm for A2 project. Will be blogging soon pic.twitter.com/CMdXJOWI9n — KayS (@kay_simons) June 17, 2016 I am grateful to Santander UK for the funding; CBiS Education for their support and advice so far; last but not least the schools who have enthusiastically who are taking part. All views are the author's and not an organisation the author is associated with.

Wow! It has only been four days since the robot arms kits, in the project, started going into the schools. As of yesterday half the robot arm kits are in schools - four Primary schools and one Secondary School - a further Secondary school is expected to have one tomorrow. I am looking forward to helping where I can and seeing some of the outcomes; just from the initial conversations ideas around space, code clubs and diversity have all been mentioned. Here are some of the tweets about what has happened already (not all of them me). Also get free #Cardboard2Code Part1 https://t.co/f0LF1LMzls Part2 https://t.co/ywGtp3VVU3 @Tiffybum @scottturneruon pic.twitter.com/LZ5HV1UC9E — CBiS Education (@cbiseducation) June 9, 2016 @scottturneruon @cbiseducation Arm up & running, and we are already tinkering! This will be a fun year! pic.twitter.com/slWDPZ92B2 — Stacey (@Tiffybum) June 9, 2016 Getting ready to talk about the Robot Arm project at #tmplaydate @santanderuk

Santander UK  recently provided the funding for a project I have want to do for a while; to loan robot arm kits, which are pretty much self-contained, out to schools to see what they come up with. The idea being to provide the kit for a year and the schools taking part write a blog post (or more than one), sharing what they have done.   The chosen kit is the  CBiS Education robot arm hub  because it comes with the robot arm, cables, raspberry pi, etc as well as screen, keyboard and mouse all-in-one go (see the picture above). The kits should start going out some of the schools next week. I am grateful to Santander UK for the funding; CBiS Education for their support and advice so far; last but not least the schools who have enthusiastically expressed an interest in taking part.