Simple projects?

[sallygoroundthemoon]

I got a pyboard via the kickstarter and picked the robotics kit, with the hope of the interesting my kids (plus it was the bit I didn't have any of from playing with arduinos). Problem is, I'm not experienced enough with either microcontrollers or python to have a broad umbrella view of how to get there from here, particularly when I don't know where there is. We haven't quite worked through all the tutorials on the site yet and I've had a look at the wiki.

What I could do with is some ideas for things that are only small steps beyond the tutorials, but that are also steps to some kind of robot - so far the ideas coming from the kids are rather over ambitious!

[blmorris]

Sounds like you have already taken on a pretty ambitious task in trying to expose your kids to micro controller programming and Python while also trying to teach yourself. I hope that Micro Python proves to be a good environment to take this on!
I would have a few questions to get some idea of how to help. How old are the kids? (Roughly, don't need to tell us exact ages here. My own kids still need to be closely monitored with markers and scissors, so I'm not quite at the point of teaching them electronics or programming yet - maybe a couple more years.) What sorts of projects are they suggesting? (This could offer some ideas of smaller steps to get there.) Have they played around with electronics or programming before? There are so many educational kits out there that go so far beyond the Radio Shack project boards that I started on.
If you are just casting about for ideas, the websites https://www.sparkfun.com/ and http://www.adafruit.com/ are full of project guides at all levels from rank beginner to extremely advanced - and the level of projects accessible to beginners is getting more advanced all the time. There are plenty of other sites in the same vein, I'm sure others will suggest their favorites.
-Bryan

[sallygoroundthemoon]

I may have slightly understated my knowledge, I'm fine with the programming side of things and used to figuring out new bits of hardware. Kid I'm mostly aiming this stuff at is 11, he already knows some python and some electronics from various kits he's had to play with and also arduinos.

Where I feel like I'm lacking is imagination and then discerning how complex a project is.

From the tutorials, we now know about buttons and servos, so it seems a logical next step is get a button to do something to a servo. Also, though we haven't worked through the mouse tutorial yet, having some kind of servo response to that input seems like a thing to try, same with something using a timer. Also using the pio seems like a next step. Ideally I'd like to have something we're aiming for so I can encourage the kids by saying if you learn this you can do that - sadly they aren't particularly self motivated in this area!

I'll have a look at the sites you mentioned.

[sallygoroundthemoon]

hmm, I thought I'd hit reply, but nothing is showing up - thanks for the sites, I'd heard of them, but hadn't realised they had tutorials.

I may have understated my own abilities, I'm a fairly competent programmer, just not so familiar with python and haven't completed any microcontroller based projects. Kid I'm mostly aiming to do this stuff with is 11, but when we've tried programming related stuff before the 9 year old seems to follow just as well, think last year of primary school kind of project.

[dhylands]

I would imagine that anything that can be done with an arduino can also be done with micropython. The libraries might not exist yet, but that's where the fun is

So it's really about deciding on what you want to do, and then deciding how to do it.

I'm pretty familiar with many of the hobbyist style sensors and actuators (motors, servos, steppers, etc), so feel free to ask questions. My personal interest is robotics. Professionally, I'm a software developer who has been involved in embedded realtime for many years, and a background in digital electronics.

[sallygoroundthemoon]

My biggest problem is, I ask my kids to think of things they would like to build and the universal answer is robot arm, which definitely isn't a first project and would need more money invested in bits and bobs. In terms of inputs and outputs beyond LEDs and buttons, I have the contents of a kit very similar to this one http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Hobby-Compone ... 4897.l4275 and the four servos that came with the pyboard.

It's obvious I'm going to have to put some work in myself - which is tricky to do when you don't know what your goal is. My goal is introducing my children to programming, but that's too abstract right now to break down into what I should be focusing on. The best idea I have myself is some kind of 21st century take on 1980s text based role playing games, but even then it's a very vague idea!

[dhylands]

I guess it depends on the exact servos that came with the kit (I didn't opt for the kit since I already have lots of servos).

Here is an example of a fairly crude arm that could be built with servos:
http://www.instructables.com/id/Easy-an ... Robot-Arm/

Notice that they used 2 servos for the first segment. This is basically to give the servo enough torque to be able to lift the weight of the rest of the arm.

Here's something else that can be done with servos (pretty much regardless of the size): http://makezine.com/2008/12/15/arduinoc ... or-walker/

Another thing that kids would probably like is the "useless box"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aqAUmgE3WyM

[sallygoroundthemoon]

This kind of thing is exactly what I'm looking for, thanks. We're just reaching the end of a holiday week and I doubt we'll have much time at Christmas, so I've got plenty of time for teaching myself.