[TriEmbed] TriEmbed Digest, Vol 20, Issue 37

Terry King terry at yourduino.com
Mon Jan 26 09:02:24 CST 2015


Hello Jon and the group,

Jon your work is really exciting to see.  I have been working on Arduino
kits and low-cost Robot kits for a couple of years and have sold 1000's of
the Arduino-based kits like this one:
http://yourduino.com/sunshop2/index.php?l=product_detail&p=395

The audience for these is University and High School students and
hobbyists. The How-To looks like this:
http://arduino-info.wikispaces.com/YourDuinoEngStarter

I wish, I WISH I could complete a kit that would really work for 4-8th
grade kids! So I am very interested in what you are doing. Two of my
Granddaughters are teaching in rural Vermont and one of my Sons is
teaching 5th grade in Vietnam this year.  So I also have a motivation to
come up with good stuff for them.

My low-cost $40 retail Robot kit has open-loop DC motors and so is hard to
tune to drive straight for long distances, but it works well in
object-avoidance (come with Ultrasonic) or Line-following (add-on).. See:
http://arduino-info.wikispaces.com/YourDuino-Basic-Robot-Kit

I would be happy to send you samples of those two things to work with if
you think they could work with your ideas.

OTHER: I am also working on a 4-8th grade Science Kit that would include
Arduino, doing things like Electricity, Magnetism, Force, Gravity, etc
etc. Just starting, working with my Son teaching 5th grade and a couple
other sons who are Engineers.  Maybe your programming environment would be
appropriate for kids learning 'Science and Technology'..

My partner is on the street in Shenzhen, China with cash which is the
secret to getting the best prices on stuff like programmers and
components; we should check that out.

It's your thing, but let me know how I can help.

Regards, Terry King
...In the Woods in Vermont USA
terry at yourduino.com

-The One who Dies with the most Parts LOSES. What do you need??

---------------------( COPY )---------------------
> From: jonjwolfe at anibit.com
> To: Pete Soper <pete at soper.us>
> Cc: Triangle Embedded Computing Discussion <triembed at triembed.org>
> Subject: Re: [TriEmbed] Middle school presentation
>
> I'll take this opportunity to plug/solicit feedback on a new tool I came
> up with that coincidentally is targeted at teaching Arduino programming to
> kids and beginners. I've adapted code from the MIT app inventor and a
> similar project for Arduinos named Blocklyduino. (Both are based on the
> 'Blockly' graphical programming library) I'm working on some code
> clean-up and then I'll publish it on github under Apache license. My
> adaptation has a focus on the Pololu 3Pi robot, but should be usable with
> generic Arduinos too.
>
> The app itself runs in a web browser, and you can cut and paste the
> resulting code into an Arduino IDE. It does run on tablets, though not very
> well, I hope to fix that eventually. (It also has major problems in IE,
> but works fine in Chrome/Firefox/Safari)
>
> You can play with it here: https://anibit.com/webtools/3pi/ [1]
>
>
> The "Getting started" help is not written yet.
>
>
> I'm working on a Windows version that runs the webapp internally and
> talks to the Arduino IDE to let you upload you code in one click. I have
> proof of concept working for that, but I need to add some polish and
> clean-up and I'll publish that too.
>
> As far as economy programming devices, I'm torn between the Adafruit ISP
> and the Pololu One. The Pololu programmer is a hair cheaper ($19.95) and
> also has UART functionality, and an ultra low bandwidth scope. As an
> aside, AVR ISP devices that can work at 3.3V seem to be hard to come by.
> The AVR Dragon can do it, it has built in level shifters to use the
> target voltage. The Dragon is more expensive at ~$50, but it really is the
> Cadillac of cheap AVR programmers, it also does JTAG and and
> debugging too, just treat it delicately.
>
> --Jon





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