Arduino BOE Kit and Raspibot Board
Automation, Robotics, and AI (Artificial Intelligence) technological fields are impacting toDay's society at an accelerated rate. Mobile Robot Development platforms allow educators, engineers, and makers the ability to explore these technologies with low overhead and tremendous community support. In this introductory class, a variety of Mobile Robot Development platforms will be discussed. The hands-on laboratory session will introduce the Parallax Arduino BOE Shield Bot through a series of coding examples and circuit interfacing control of typical LEDs.
The Arduino BOE shield is the brain for Parallax's mobile robot platform development kit. Controlling the BOE bot's motion requires electronic motor driver circuits operating a pair of servo motors. In this session, a review of the BOE bot shield motor driver circuits and basic coding techniques using math, conditional and relational instructions will be presented. The Hands-on lab will consist of coding driver code and testing the BOE Shield Bot's servo motors.
To maneuver the BOE Shield bot in its environment requires basic navigation techniques. Basic movements such as forward, reverse, pivot, and rotating with coding examples will be discussed in this class session. The hands-on lab session will show how the BOE Shield Bot can navigate using tactile object detection controls.
The RaspiRobot board is a Raspberry Pi hat designed for mobile robotics and visual display projects. The RaspiRobot board was designed by well-known Arduino and Raspberry Pi maker Simon Monk. In this session, the RaspiRobot board's architecture and setup of the Python library will be explained. The hands-on lab will present basic Python motor control commands to operate onboard LEDs and an external dc motor.
A continuation of Day 4 session, additional Python commands for the RaspiRobot Board and controlling two dc motors along with speed control will be discussed. The hands-on lab will focus on testing these motor and speed control commands using Python with RaspiRobot Board.
Dr. Don Wilcher, an Electrical Engineer, is an Associate Certified Electronics Technician (CETa), a Technical Education Researcher, Instructor, Maker, Emerging Technology Lecturer, Electronics Project writer, and Book Author. His Learn Electronics with Arduino book, published by Apress, has been cited 80 times in academic journals and referenced on patents.
He is the Assistant Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Alabama - Birmingham. His research interest is Embedded Controls, Robotics Education, Machine Learning, and Artificial Intelligence applications and their impact on Personalized Learning, Competency-Based Models curriculum, and instructional development in Mechatronics, Automation, IoT, Electronics, Robotics, and Industrial Maintenance Technologies. He is also the Founder and owner of MaDon Research LLC, an instructional technology consulting, technical training, and electronics project writing company serving Electronics Marketing Media, Technical and Engineering Education companies.