ARC

ARC / RRC / tech_ventures

Chatbot

If, like me, you were a fan of the Tomy robot collection from the 1980s, then you may also recall the tantalising sensation born out of an awareness of what those robots were unable to do, which was almost as invigorating as what they could do.

Take Chatbot: it was equipped with a mechanical voice recorder that was primed by pulling a large level down whilst speaking a message, then triggered by remote control. Hours of fun ensued driving it around with occasional spoken messages being relayed.

Chatbot was not without limitation, however. It could not engage in further conversation – or be instructed to move – or check on the road conditions outside.

Now that it is 2024, Chatbot could – and over the coming weeks I hope to reveal one way of achieving an upgrade to this venerable robot!

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February 13, 2024
ARC / Digital Writes / Resources / RRC / Tech To Help (TTH)

Robot Racing Club

Delighted to announce the start of RRC -with the ever-wonderful St Mary’s Primary School! We are currently exploring which kit works best, and hoping to develop this new club in support of neurodivergent pupils soon. Thank you to Colm and the team for providing every opportunity to explore new technologies with his wonderful class – from Unity-built gaming to the upcoming WatchBox – these pupils are pioneers!

www.flickernet.net/rrc

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November 27, 2023
ARC / Resources / Space To Learn / tech_ventures

Pi Upgrades

Led by Zjeremy, (who retains what Steve (HoD GWA) affectionately refers to as a “prototyping look”!) – a number of Raspberry Pi upgrades are now taking shape. Zjeremy needs to run Scratch 3 with a bit of vim if he is to juggle multiple HATS for interfacing with. His secondary 3b board was not up to speed, but the 4b seems happier. To celebrate, he was coded into taking images of the woodland views from the second floor of Great Western Academy.

Meanwhile low cost LCD screens set into basic plastic boxes are a quick and simple addition for classroom kit. Raspberry Pi units deliver physical computing with core electronics and more advanced sensing: it is helpful to enclose them for protection during transport. A ribbon cable allows the GPIO to be extended for easy connections.

The CarFume Detector unit is almost ready for deploying on a busy Swindon street. It will mirror the functionality of Zjeremy and the Tree Pi – providing new urban data for comparison.

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November 16, 2023
ARC / Digital Writes / Resources / Space To Learn / SWLEP / Tech To Help (TTH)

Reflections on a sabbatical year

From climbing trees in the woods of Northern Ireland whilst clutching Raspberry Pi units, to helping children who were on the cusp of quitting school to build adventure game-books, this year has been a real eye-opener to me.

It is a rare privilege to become free to teach what one chooses. I hadn’t dared believe that it could happen, but now Flickernet is full steam ahead – 24 years on from those early Dot Com years – with a new focus called TTH: Tech To Help. This is what I will be up to, going forward – please see the synopsis page for more information or if you would like to be involved.

www.flickernet.net/review

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July 4, 2023
ARC / Resources

Micro:Bit Extras

https://www.flickernet.net/microbit

Hardly a day passes without a new Micro:Bit accessory becoming available. With Version 2 Micro:Bits having a bit more about them (!) and Primary Schools now having the offer of 30 free – it is a great time to explore the extra functionality that these offer.

As a quick guide for ARC, I have put a page together that lists some of the best – along with links to info pages / data sheets and associated resources.

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May 22, 2023
ARC

Doom via Makey Makey

This week in ARC we enjoyed the potential of Makey Makey units with a view to incorporating them into future robotics. Doom and Asteroids ensued!

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March 23, 2023
ARC / Resources

PA Consulting Competition Entered

https://www.flickernet.net/pacomp2

After a scramble to complete our two entries as far as possible – it is congratulations to Team Heat Hunters (Year 10/11) and Team Purple (Year 13) for readying their submissions in time. There was much more intended, but the experience of applying thermal imaging sensing and AI number recognition, gave both teams some valuable insights into these intriguing areas of robotics.

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March 20, 2023
ARC / tech_ventures

PA Consulting Competition update

All three of the ARC entries are gathering momentum. There is just one month left before the closing date of this year’s competition – which equates to four hours for us! Although only one entry (The Thermal Imaging project) could actually be described as a “robot”, it has been wonderful to see each team applying their coding, construction, and debugging skills in earnest.

https://www.flickernet.net/arc2
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February 13, 2023
ARC / tech_ventures

Robo Race

Christmas fun at ARC when we set our Kitronik Move Motor robots to race each other along a winding track around the classroom! Some pupils kept it simple – follow the line – others included their ultrasonics and yet others played Christmas carols en route! With a large chocolate first prize and spot prizes for best dressed robot – there was every incentive to fine tune the active code!

https://www.flickernet.net/arc2
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December 8, 2022
ARC / Resources

Robo BCS launch

Thank you to Stuart and the team at BCS for a most interesting day exploring the new BCS Level 1 qualification at BCS HQ. The twelve of us present were taken through the materials and provided with ample time to explore what delivery of this new certification will look like.

As LPA are one of the first schools to offer this (through the STEM Enthuse Partnership) I will be sharing here what the experience of being a certified testing centre is like – and how well our pupils do in tackling the qualification.

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December 8, 2022
ARC / Resources

Pico Prize

Thank you to Grace and the judging panel for PA Consulting, part of Cambridge Network, who sent us an enormous envelope – inside which was a small, but perfectly formed Pico! The judges commented on our project:

“Your objectives, although challenging, show the impact you wish to have. I also like that you see this as an interactive approach and not something that is solved in one go.I hope you keep the development and team spirit going”

https://www.cambridgenetwork.co.uk/news/pa-consulting-invites-schools-take-part-its-raspberry-pi-coding-competition-and-innovate-save

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May 9, 2022
ARC / tech_ventures

Zjeremy looks askance

the ARC demo robot has three functioning brains, two (Pi) on WiFi and one on Bluetooth but has not yet rumbled out of the door.. Sensor readings are rather erratic and the head-mounted servo obeys no known code. On the plus side Motors coping with the combined weight and Meccano providing a strong exoskeleton. Also the camera works!

More details here:

Zjeremy
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January 16, 2022