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!! Recommendation
Certainly, which of the many robotic microcomputer/microcontroller platforms (Raspberry Pi, Arduino, micro:bit, etc.), which of the various programming environments (graphical, Python, MicroPython, C++, assembly language), and then which robot to choose has much to do with one's requirements, whether to purchase a ready-made robot, a kit, or design-your-own from either an existing system or truly on your own. And whether to purchase something that grows with one's experience or is limited to the specifics of the chosen robot. I won't mention "age level" since it's pretty clear that a 10 year old and a 70 year old may share the same level of previous experience, interest, and ingenuity.
For a "club robot", i.e., something that a group of people can cooperatively work together, share ideas and designs, something that has a wide range of programming opportunities, and something that is very well-documented and used by a ''huge'' number of people, well, the __BBC micro:bit__ platform is hard to beat. The micro:bit can be used as a learning tool outside of robotic applications, and because of its edge connector needn't be soldered or permanently connected to a robot.
Among the many micro:bit based robots the "votes" were based on durability, expandability, features-to-cost, and finally, aesthetics. While appearance may be considered important to children, my guess is that it's the parents that believe that cuteness counts. It probably does for the first ten minutes. After the cuteness wears off a child probably wants a robot that is something they can learn and be intrigued by, one with a bit of depth. A Lego kit that can only be built one way is less than a set of Lego blocks that continues to spur the imagination.
With that said, our first choice is the __Waveshare Alphabot__, as it has a lot of features for the money, and is probably the most durable of the micro:bit robots listed below. The DFRobot __micro:Maqueen Plus__ or __micro:Maqueen Lite__ are likewise great choices. The Plus has a lot of expansion capabilities, even an AI "smart" camera that can be trained to recognise objects and colours.
I'm a bit of a fan of the 4Tronics products, having used their PiconZero Raspberry Pi controller. Their robots are visually appealing but less expandable and likely a bit more fragile than the aforementioned choices. They typically have a marker holder to let the robot draw on a piece of paper, but frankly I'd be concerned with having a marker-laden robot running over my wood floors. Line following and exploration are probably more interesting and educational endeavours.
While this may seem a bit advanced for beginners, the availability of motor encoders and a [PID controller] (in order to perform [odometry]) has been __strongly recommended__ by members of the [DPRG|http://dprg.org/] as a very valuable learning opportunity. The only robot that provides this functionality is the __micro:Maqueen Plus__, so if you're interested in learning the basics of odometry that'd be the first choice.
It'd be possible to add motor encoders to the Waveshare Alphabot, but that would entail swapping out the existing micro metal gear motors for ones with an __extended motor shaft__ and one of the three motor encoder options (all available from [Pololu|https://www.pololu.com/category/60/micro-metal-gearmotors]). Not trivial, but certainly doable.
This page (revision-50) was last changed on 2021-03-29 07:49 by Murray AltheimTop