robotics | OpenSTEM Pty Ltd

New Mirobot v3 arrival in Australia

Here’s our batch of brand new Mirobot v3 kits on their arrival in Australia, dozens stacked. Since the v3 have a neat acrylic frame, I think I’ll do a proper “unboxing” and first build video of one soon, so you can see for yourself what this is about.

Many classes of year 5 and 6 students around Brisbane and their teachers have done our Robotics Workshops in recent years (using the Mirobot v1 and v2), and others have purchased their own Mirobot to build and use at home. And schools around Australia order sets to run their own programs.

What’s special about the v3 is that it’s now possible to repeatedly build and (carefully) disassemble the Mirobots, which means that not only the programming but also the assembly process can be repeated for future cohorts.

Below is an animation of the v3 kit build process:

The Mirobot is a “logo” turtle: it takes a pen (up&down) and can move forward/reverse (in mm) and turn left/right (in degrees). So, Mirobot can draw, and that’s really important because it provides students with very direct feedback for their programming. There are also bump and line-following sensors.

Students engage with inquiry-based learning: first the build which involves learning about the components and the mechanical structure – then, programming from a “simple” square, to a house, circle, stars and much more complex patterns. Students also make them write letters. Sure!

Most of the current batch was already pre-ordered, but we have some regular stock.

OpenSTEM 3D Printing and Robotics @ Kilcoy Show

Last Friday and Saturday we had a great time at the Kilcoy Show (that’s a few hours North of Brisbane), showing visitors 3D printing in action and answering lots of questions on that topic – we actually printed some HO-scale train gear and miniature sheep for our model railway neighbours at the show!

We also let kids have a good play with the Mirobot drawing turtle robots and enjoying our cute robotic caterpillar.

OpenSTEM booth at Kilcoy Show 2016 — The OpenSTEM booth, next to Andrew Triggs of Mt Kilcoy State School

We saw a fair amount of interest from parents and visiting teachers for our work with schools, from the workshops to our resources and complete classroom programs, of which we had some sample materials that people could browse and ask us about.

On Friday we had the opportunity to meet briefly with Deb Frecklington, QLD state MP for Nanango (Shadow Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry), and talked about the meaning and importance of STEM. Naturally STEM is critical for our agriculture as well!

Trevor Wessling (Kilcoy Show), Deb Frecklington (Nanango MP), Arjen (OpenSTEM)

Our other neighbours at the show were Mt Kilcoy State School, where teacher Andrew Triggs showed off QUT LEGO robotics. Kids enjoyed watching the Rubik cube solver – I competed with it a few times, and was done well before it was 😉

The event has inspired me to build a few more things for kids to interact with and to show how awesome electronics and robotics can be explored without requiring costly gear.

Free Robotics Incursion in Brisbane Area

If your school or homeschool group is based in our around the Brisbane area, we can visit with our robotic caterpillar and other critters as part of our FREE Robotics Incursion.

The caterpillar has quickly become our main mascot, as students, teachers and parents take a liking to it! It is an autonomous robot, with a 3D printed frame and Arduino controlled electronics.

The OpenSTEM caterpillar design and code are fully open and also serve as a good example of how subjects such as robotics can be explored at relatively low cost – that is, without expensive branded kits. This can be a real enabler for both school and home.

For more details on what we cover and do on this incursion, see the Robotics Incursion page, or contact us to discuss!

OpenSTEM robots visit Hobart primary school

On our last day in Tasmania (after the OSDC conference, about which I’ll do other posts shortly), Claire and I visited the wonderful Lauderdale Primary School in Hobart, where I did a version of our free Robotics Incursion with two year 5/6 classes, having a chat about robots, robotics, and more – and having our autonomous caterpillar and hexapod robots stroll around the sports hall….

The students were really engaged, they had thoughtful questions and great ideas – and the feedback from the kids as well as the teachers was that the session was fun as well as educational. Good!

We often do this incursion as a neat way for schools, teachers and students to get to know us before undertaking a bigger program such as the Robotics & Programming one. But, when we’re travelling somewhere with the robots anyway, it’s great to visit a local school. All our facilitators hold a current “working with children” card, so getting something like this organised is really quite straightforward.

Mirobot v2 Robotics Kits and Soldering Kits Available

The Mirobot v2 logo turtle robotics kits will be here shortly. These are the updated version of the kits we have been using at primary schools (year 4-6) this year in our Robotics and Programming workshops. The new model doesn’t require little pegs any more, the structure now holds itself together with a beautiful designed slot mechanism. Kudos to Ben Pirt for an awesome design!

The robot frames are made of lasercut MDF, and the circuit board is Arduino controlled. All aspects of the design is open and available. The robot can be used to draw, but now also comes with bump sensors and line following capabilities. Communication is through wifi over a raw or web socket. There are a number of programming and control options, from Scratch-style visual systems to a brand new Python library!

By default the v2 comes with a pre-soldered circuit board, but especially for OpenSTEM Ben is offering a non-soldered PCB so we can continue doing the soldering part with classes also. We have found this to be both a great enabler for students, as well as teach that people can build things almost from scratch. But you choose… we keep both the soldered and un-soldered kits. Either way, this is a great project to do with your kids at home, quite a few parents of students that do our workshops also continue in this way.

If you order now, we’ll still be able to include you in the first shipment!

Now for Electronics Soldering! If you or your children want to also do some soldering but don’t have the necessary tools yet, we now have sets available. We assemble our own classroom soldering kits ourselves from a number of sources, as sets found in shops have flimsy or awkward stands. We use a solid steel stand, that also features a wire cleaning ball – this works much better than a wet sponge and it is much easier to maintain. We also include a number of other useful items.

You can order the soldering kit together with a Mirobot kit, or on its own.

Shipping of orders including Mirobots will be in November. This is likely to be our final Mirobot order this side of Christmas, so we do recommend you order now if you want to have the kit available over the holidays.

Caterpillar Gets Operation and Goes on Tour

Our robotic caterpillar mascot needed a little operation today: its middle horizontal servo had been acting up in recent weeks, so I replaced it. I’m happy to report it’s made a full recovery!

Robotic caterpillar gets spinal operational — OpenSTEM’s robotic caterpillar gets a spinal operation

Later today we’re visiting Chermside library (during their renovation they’re currently located at North Regional Business Centre, 960 Gympie Road, opposite the Westfield Chermside Shopping Centre).

We’ll also be demonstrating the Mirobot drawing turtles from our popular Robotics Program.