Robots in School

Guest Blogger Hiren Mistry, 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 . How to use Minecraft to move a USB Robot Arm on a Raspberry Pi By Hiren Mistry Currently, I am taking part in a Nuffield Foundation Research Placement at the University of Northampton, researching how to control a CBIS Robot Arm using a Raspberry Pi. This part of the project aims to learn more about using Python in Minecraft and how I can control the Robot Arm using Minecraft. When the player hits a specific block, the Robot Arm will move in a specific way. Minecraft is an adventure game where players are put in a randomly-generated world and can create their own structures and contraptions out of textured cubes. Here are the main commands used in Python for Minecraft Pi: Command

Guest Blogger Hiren Mistry, Nuffield Research Placement Student working at the University of Northampton. How to use a PS3 Controller to move a USB Robot Arm on a Raspberry Pi By Hiren Mistry This program enables the user to control the robot arm via a PlayStation 3 Controller, through USB connection. Requirements: ·         PyUSB- This must be installed so the Python Code can interact with the USB Robot Arm. It can be downloaded from  https://sourceforge.net/projects/pyusb/files/PyUSB%201.0/1.0.0/pyusb-1.0.0.tar.gz/download ·         PyGame- This module is needed to receive input from the PS3 controller. It can be downloaded from  http://www.pygame.org/download.shtml   How does it Work? To receive the input from the controller PyGame is used. PyGame is a set of modules used for writing games and contains the necessary modules need to receive the PlayStation controller input. The input consists of 3 major parts of the controller: ·         Buttons- These