Hi there,<p>I know a few teenagers interested in robots, but are not super sold on the blockly drag and drop programming.<p>Anyone have something slightly more complex, while still being geared toward Teens?<p>Thank you!
Check out FIRST. If you're lucky a local high school or organization will already have a team that you could have them join.<p><a href="http://www.firstinspires.org/" rel="nofollow">http://www.firstinspires.org/</a><p>It's a yearly competition and teams build a robot to compete. That robot is usually pretty big (3x3 ft. at the base, usually?). There's a kit of parts that includes a board, and the programming environment is mostly pre-configured for you.<p>Next year's build season kicks off early January. The stuff these kids can build in a month is pretty amazing.
Maybe Lego Mindstorms Ev3? [0] It's super cool and programmable with UI programmer app and PC/MAC assistance, though still with programming blocks. But I see people managed to use Python for programming it [1]<p>[0] <a href="http://www.lego.com/en-us/mindstorms/?domainredir=mindstorms.lego.com" rel="nofollow">http://www.lego.com/en-us/mindstorms/?domainredir=mindstorms...</a><p>[1] <a href="http://bitsandbricks.no/2014/01/19/getting-started-with-python-on-ev3/" rel="nofollow">http://bitsandbricks.no/2014/01/19/getting-started-with-pyth...</a>
Shameless plug, but...<p>I was frustrated by the lack of affordable, expandable walking robots, so I've been working on one of my own<p><a href="http://www.redrobotics.co" rel="nofollow">http://www.redrobotics.co</a><p>Not for sale yet, but I'm starting to run workshops locally and the plan is to crowdfund in the early spring with a target price of about £70/$100. It'll work standalone but can hold a Raspberry Pi or Arduino for expandability.<p>I think legged/armed robots can be a lot more engaging than buggy robots, and open up some interesting avenues for creating motions and thinking about multi degree-of-freedom limbs, but things like Robosapian are just toys, and the $400 hobby robots can get boring quickly (e.g. adding a camera is difficult).<p>If you have access to a 3D printer there are some interesting open source robot projects at the moment - for example Poppy: <a href="https://www.poppy-project.org/" rel="nofollow">https://www.poppy-project.org/</a> for which you can start by just building a torso
The recent Hanselman post talks about this - <a href="http://www.hanselman.com/blog/The2015ChristmasListOfBestSTEMToysForYourLittleNerdsAndNerdettes.aspx" rel="nofollow">http://www.hanselman.com/blog/The2015ChristmasListOfBestSTEM...</a> .
IMHO, Raspberry Pi / Arduino + addons (I believe they are called "shields") is the best thing that happened to robotics in this century...
I've been involved in robotics for a long time. The thing that I find attractive is that they engage three different engineering disciplines, electrical, mechanical, and software. However, that same diversity can often dissuade a student who is interested but becomes intimidated by the steep learning curve.<p>The other thing about robotics is that you really need a goal, otherwise people lose interest. The HBRC started the table top challenge which was good for a variety of reasons, 1) it was approachable, 2) it needed only a table top to work, and 3) it had enough complexity (in stages) to keep people challenged. DPRG created a number of challenges as well that were similarly staged.<p>So first ascertain which of the three disciplines they are most likely to be successful at. And start there. Parallax offers a number of good kits which are easy to program and the Makershed has the Arduino based robots.<p>Second come up with a goal, an objective that you seek to accomplish. Working toward that will give you the feeling of accomplishment you need to stay interested and feel like you are going somewhere.<p>Third, decide on your budget and set your scale appropriately. For low budget robotics you can build robots using converted servos for motors that roll around on tables, but for higher budgets you might want to build "Magellen" robots which can navigate around outdoors. If you really want to burn money quickly I suggest starting a battlebots team :-).
ComputerCraft turtles on modded minecraft.<p>If you must spend money on hardware, buy them desktop upgrades, more memory or the fastest processor that'll fit in the socket (may need to upgrade BIOS first...) or a top of the line graphics card.<p>I think turtles are easy to program, they're in LUA and are a step above blockly type stuff. I kinda like the LUA APIs, they're not ridiculous or anything. They're simple enough that you'll get a chance to build useful larger functions / subroutines.<p>At least its cheap. If they throw up their hands in frustration at programming their own tunnel mining program, at least you'll find out soon and it'll be cheap. Start with building a robot smart enough to build stairs all the way down to bedrock. Extend to have it place actual stair steps and torches for light, etc.<p>Note that there's a subtle difference between a future-EE-teen who thinks programming robots is cool and a future-EE-teen who thinks robot hardware is cool (like motor H-bridges and gray code position encoders and sensors and generally melting solder). Obviously the latter is not going to find modded minecraft amusing. There is also the "competition robot" set which usually isn't programmable but amounts to homemade RC cars, you specifically don't want that, just mentioning it as something to look out for and avoid in the market.
Robot maker here so had to chime in with an obligatory plug :-)<p>I produce Mirobot which is designed to teach kids about everything from the engineering aspects of how it's built to programming it using a number of different methods. It's a drawing robot so you can also use it to learn about geometry and maths.<p>It's all open source and easy to program because it connects via WiFi which means it can all be controlled via WebSockets in your browser. There are a bunch of apps (<a href="http://apps.mirobot.io" rel="nofollow">http://apps.mirobot.io</a>) which include some drag and drop type apps but also an app to program it with JS. But because it's all just async JSON over WebSockets (or raw sockets) you can program it in any program you like really.<p>It's Arduino compatible which also means you can dig in at that level too.<p>Check it out if you're interested: <a href="http://mirobot.io" rel="nofollow">http://mirobot.io</a> (15% off with code: XMAS15)
If you have the cash, we use Turtlebots in our labs. They use ROS which can be programmed in C++, Python or LISP. There's a cheaper similar version that also uses ROS called DeepBot, but I haven't had any experience with it. It looks good from the website though and that price is hard to beat.<p>ROS is great as the code you write for one robot can be used on another one fairly easily. It's also gaining pretty large traction in industry with companies. I find that Raspberry Pi/Arduino route more geared towards hardware. I tried that route myself and lost interest fairly quickly.<p>[0]<a href="http://www.turtlebot.com/" rel="nofollow">http://www.turtlebot.com/</a><p>[1]<a href="http://www.ros.org/" rel="nofollow">http://www.ros.org/</a><p>[2]<a href="https://www.autonomous.ai/deepbot-research-robot" rel="nofollow">https://www.autonomous.ai/deepbot-research-robot</a>
Makeblock is an awesome option. They are Arduino powered (and you can stack a Raspberry Pi on top of that if you want). Most importantly, it's all Creative Commons open source licensed, hardware and all. No buying into someone's patented system. Most of the other kits out there seem like a disassembled toy you're to screw together. The Makeblock kits are actually extensible and you can make anything... they even have a plans for a 3D printer from the same parts. The beams are designed to connect to Technic parts, as well. If you go to your Radio Shack (yes, many Radio Shacks are still open and continuing on) you can find these kits deeply discounted (like 25% of their original price). <a href="http://www.makeblock.cc/" rel="nofollow">http://www.makeblock.cc/</a>
I'm currently developing a FOSS line of robots aimed at tweens, teens, and everything in between. They are not ready yet (work gets in the way!). I know the marketplace well. Your best bet is to go with a Parallax Boe-Bot with the Arduino instead of the Basic Stamp. The kits are high quality and cost around $150 per kit. They are durable and are extensively documented. One kit per 3 teens is the norm. Anything else will have a bunch of plastic proprietary parts that break and not be as well documented. With teens you want a solid road plan that will keep them interested without overwhelming them.<p>If you have any questions, feel free to email me (profile). :)
Less than 48 hours left on the $15 Humble Bundle 'Learn RPi/Arduino' ebook collection:<p><a href="https://www.humblebundle.com/books" rel="nofollow">https://www.humblebundle.com/books</a>
<a href="https://www.packtpub.com/packt/offers/free-learning" rel="nofollow">https://www.packtpub.com/packt/offers/free-learning</a><p>Register, and use this link to add ebooks to your personal library. I've added several books about Arduino and e.g. Python. You have to login each day, and the book can only be claimed that one day. You don't know what book will be free tomorrow, and yesterday's book is gone.
I think the DFRobotshop Rover is a pretty nice starting kit: <a href="http://www.robotshop.com/en/catalogsearch/result/?q=dfrobotshop+rover&order=stats_sales_order_count&dir=desc" rel="nofollow">http://www.robotshop.com/en/catalogsearch/result/?q=dfrobots...</a><p>It's really simple and straightforward construction, but it's also really expandable, and really standardized. The main system board is basically an Arduino with a bunch of additional parts like the motor controllers pre-included. You can drop in XBees for wireless control or what-have you, add Arduino shields, etc. The drive system is a very cheap, standard Tamiya kit as well, so it's very easy to repair/replace damaged parts.<p>And it's an Arduino, which means you have a programming platform that's pretty simple and exploding in popularity right now.
Bricktronics is pretty awesome: <a href="https://www.wayneandlayne.com/bricktronics/" rel="nofollow">https://www.wayneandlayne.com/bricktronics/</a><p>It lets you add on much more advanced tools to lego robotics by way of arduinos.<p>Edit: I also want to add that bricktronics is open source!
We recently purchased ten Zumo robot kits from Pololu for our high school kids. They all learned a lot and solved a maze using Arduino programming.<p>Check out <a href="https://www.pololu.com/product/2510" rel="nofollow">https://www.pololu.com/product/2510</a>
Vex!<p>Vex is definitely the highest quality stuff, you can program in C, and they have tons of competitions using this gear to get involved in.<p><a href="http://www.vexrobotics.com/vexedr" rel="nofollow">http://www.vexrobotics.com/vexedr</a>
The iRobot Create is a cheap, robust knock-about platform that has ROS drivers available. It's based on the Roomba, so it's unusually well made for a hobby robot.<p><a href="http://store.irobot.com/education-research-robots/irobot-create-programmable-robot/family.jsp?categoryId=2591511&gclid=Cj0KEQiA7rmzBRDezri2r6bz1qYBEiQAg-YEtjXdgVqdfVOPzMlD1Z-Ef3B6geQFVNuhgB48FuZNB64aAszu8P8HAQ" rel="nofollow">http://store.irobot.com/education-research-robots/irobot-cre...</a>
A recent issue of MagPi has an issue about building RPi robots... <a href="https://www.raspberrypi.org/magpi/issues/38/" rel="nofollow">https://www.raspberrypi.org/magpi/issues/38/</a>
IRobot has a new hackable robot geared towards STEM education. It's basically a stripped down (read: vacuum-less) roomba you can hack on.<p>www.irobot.com/create
when I was home-schooled, my dad bought me this <a href="https://www.parallax.com/product/boe-bot-robot" rel="nofollow">https://www.parallax.com/product/boe-bot-robot</a><p>It really sparked my interest in CS. I'm not saying it's the best thing out there, but there certainly is no bullshit GUI...