Two Fourths!

One more for the 4th from my pay, Eric (aka Mr. Roboto at Servo Magazine and erco on the Parallax Forums). Eric says, "Flag-waving Parallax Boebot with RoboVoice chip sings 'America' to Lindsey on the Fourth of July. Lindsey's final words: 'That was cool!'"

I agree. Happy Fourth of July for the second time!

Happy Fourth of July from RUS

For all my friends at Parallax, and on the Parallax Forums, and on the Parallax Facebook Page and at Blockly for Microcontrollers at Facebook and followers of my blog.

"The Star Spangled Sticker"
being a Fourth of July Tribute to Parallax

Oh, say can you see by the bright pixel light
What so proudly we wired from the website we’re streaming?
Whose great Bots and ELEV-8 in a perilous flight,
O'er the Forums we watched where the ed staff was STEAM-ing?
And the diodes' red glare, the sensors testing the air,
Give proof every night that team Gracey is there.
Oh, say does that star-spangled sticker yet wave
O'er the band of great geeks with the products we crave?

Dear Team Parallax, and Forum Heros, and Parallax Facebook friends and RUS readers,

Thank you all for everything you do! Have a great weekend, get some rest - I'll be playing with great stuff you all have made, using ideas shared here by faithful Forum members, Facebook friends, blog readers, and Parallax team members,  - ALL holiday weekend long! Learning new things and having more fun than you can imagine.

With my sincere appreciation!

Whit+ @ Robotics Under the Stole & Red Sea Robotics

Art with BlocklyProp

Having fun testing the learn.parallax.com tutorials for the S3 using BlocklyProp- this the last example in the "Try This" section of Turning Shapes into Art from the Simple Motion with Motors Blocks. Give it a try! Here is the link to the code at Parallax's BlocklyProp page - Turning Shapes into Art.

Note: This photo is using an SRX Dry-Erase marker (same size as a Sharpie) on a white board.

Building on this fun - my buddy, Carol Lynn Hazlett, scribbled the same design with light using a time-lapsed photo. More on this idea is here.

Now a photo of the simple code that makes this design... BlocklyProp is SO MUCH fun!

Robotics Around the World

Nikos is fourth in from the left - shown with his students.

My friend and robotics educator, Nikos Giannakopoulos, posted these interesting photos on Facebook. 

Nikos says these are, "Some highlights from our program report on the first day of the student cultural festival in Skayiopoúlio Patras."

Nikos also notes in this reply to my comment, that he and his students were depicting cultural monuments using robots. Their first theme was the St Andrew's Cathedral of Patras Read about it here - https://en.wikipedia.org/.../St_Andrew%27s_Cathedral,_Patras. San Andreas (Andrew) is the protector of Patras, was tortured and died there.

Mail's Here!

In the mailbox today... see below - Hope it is drool resistant. I will see how BloclyProp behaves on the Propeller Professional Development Board, Rev. B. Found this on ebay for a very good price - thanks, Nate!

Update: It's alive!

When I Grow Up

This guy, James Bruton, at X Robots, is crazy smart, makes everything look easy, and explains what he is doing in an accessible and simple way... Watch all his stuff or subscribe to his YouTube channel here. 

When I grow up, I want to know all this stuff (and lots more, by the way)!

No Longer Made, But On Its Way!

The Propeller Professional Development Board is no longer made by Parallax, but I found one on ebay and it is on its way.

Parallax described the PPDB as follows:

Overview:
The Propeller Professional Development Board (PPDB) is a high-quality, fully-integrated development platform for the Propeller P8X32A multicore microcontroller.  A wide variety of peripheral connectors and typical I/O devices such as LEDs and buttons are built into the board, providing the developer with an ideal platform for rapid Propeller project development.

Key Features:
On-board voltage regulators provide 5 V and 3.3 V supplies for your application circuits   

Contains the most common I/O interfaces for the Propeller chip on one board  Large breadboard area gives plenty of room for additional components and devices

See -  Propeller Professional Development Board Guide and Propeller Professional Development Board Schematic. 

Made in the USA

Many of Parallax's products are made here in the USA at their Rocklin, California headquarters. When you see this logo, you know that the Parallax product is made here - and the quality is amazing!

They have some amazing equipment for this purpose - here is a list from their website:

• ACE Protech Selective Solder Machine (KISS 102) - KISS stands for "Keep It Simpl Soldering". An automated selective soldering machine, used to replace the high labor cost of hand soldering in our manufacturing rooms. This machine delivers molten solder directly to through-hole applications with automated precision.
• Haas SR-100 CNC Router - A large, horizontal milling machine that can cut many types of materials, including plastics, Delrin and other non-ferrous materials. Can handle a full sheet of 4’ x 8’ material and uses a 10-tool changer to pick the right cutter for the job.
• Miller 350P MIG Welder - Provides in-house fabrication for tooling fixtures, custom machinery and some prototype work.
• SMT Solder Screen Printer - This is the first machine in our surface-mount assembly line. This machine uses a carefully-controlled squeegee to apply soldering paste to the top of a stencil with a PCB underneath.
• HJeller 1707 EXL Reflow Oven - This reflow oven finalized our conversion to lead-free manufacturing (RoHS). The oven heats the paste added onto the boards by the SMT Solder Screen Printer which solders the parts to the board.
• DoAll Automatic NC Cutoff Bandsaw - We can load this machine up with 20’ bars of material and let it cut them into blanks on its own. Some of the aluminum bar stock cut by this saw is for motor mount and wheel kits and bearing blocks.
• Technical Devices Washer - Much like a home dishwasher, however, it uses a very specific blend of chemicals that clean flux off of the boards, because leftover residue can corrode the boards.
• Torit Donaldson 20-5 Cyclone Dust Collector - The Dust Collector sits outside of the Parallax Inc. facility. It behaves as a giant vacuum, keeping the work environment safe from pollution and the products tidy and clean.
• LPKF - The circuit board routing machine.
• Haas Super Mini Mill CNC Milling Machines - We use two milling machines in the production of steel and aluminum hardware for products. Many products we build on these machines may be more suitable for injection molding or metal stamping, but we really like the high-quality look, feel and finish of a milled and anodized aluminum part.
• Schlumberger Focused Ion Beam - Parallax used this Focused Ion Beam (FIB) machine to dissect and repair the Propeller 1 silicon die on first articles.
• Assembleon Opal-X II Pick-and-Place Machine - This pick-and-place machine places components on circuit boards faster than we can package and test them!
• Epilog 36EXT 75W Laser Engraver - This machine has inspired our staff to create interesting prototypes from acrylic, Delrin, or anything else we can easily cut in this 75W laser. Because it works like a printer and doesn’t require any CAM tools to make tool paths, anybody with a drawing and a dream can use this tool.

The FLiP

For those with a QuickStart Board who want to get in on the fun - Here is an example of Cylon LEDs (or Knight Rider K.I.T.T.) programmed in BlocklyProp - The shared code is here on the Demo BlocklyProp Beta site - http://demo.blockly.parallax.com/block…/editor/blocklyc.jsp…

Photo of code, The "Hoff," and K.I.T.T. below. Enjoy!

Happy Father's Day...

Program in a bit of time this weekend to spend time with the chip off the old bot!

Note: This neat drawing is from a Father's Day Card that I found online. It was designed by SugarBeetPress - I added the greeting and slogan.

Blockly - A Fun Way to Learn

To get an idea of how fun and intuitive Blockly is for programming - take a look here. 

BlocklyProp is Parallax's latest trick in its big bag of educational resources - all free here learn.parallax.com and BlocklyProp specifically here.