Happy Easter from R.U.S.

From the 10 Best Easter Eggs for Children List - The Telegraph in England

Chococo C181 Robot Easter egg £9.50 for 175g (by the way, that is $13.32 an egg!)

Hidden within the thick milk-chocolate shell are two solid-chocolate robots, intricately designed right down to the nuts and bolts. A smattering of edible gold sprinkles inside and a dusting of silver outside makes this a very special egg to open on Easter morning. Picture: ANDREW CROWLEY

German 'Robot Priest' Helps Mark Reformation Anniversary

A robot named BlessU-2 has been installed as part of an exhibition in Germany to mark 500 years since Martin Luther wrote Ninety-five Theses, a list of propositions for academic debate that started the Protestant Reformation in Europe. BlessU-2 can deliver blessings in five languages and beams light from its hands. Note: This is from May 2017, but was too good not to share!

Yikes!

Like its biological model, the flic-flac spider, the Festo BionicWheelBot can both walk and roll. Together with its discoverer, Professor Ingo Rechenberg, the Festo bionics team has used these unique movement patterns and turned them into a technical masterpiece. This is the work of Festo's Bionic Learning Network.

Hat tip to erco (Eric Ostendorff) on the Parallax Forums. Don't know what is spookier, the real spider or the robot!

TechBuilder BB8

YouTuber, TechBuilder shows how to build a real working Starwars BB8 droid by only using household materials and Arduino! (No 3D Printers! No CNCs! No Mills!) Amazing work! I would (of course) use Parallax brains (microprocessors).

Full-Tutorial (w/Downloads): http://www.instructables.com/id/DIY-Life-Size-Phone-Controlled-BB8-Droid/ (Click: view all steps)

The droid can be controlled by any smartphone. It also talks as well. The makeshift design had cut the overall expenses to $120, making it cheaper than the Sphero toy.

Thanks to erco for sharing this on the Parallax Forums!

S3 Palm Sunday Procession

The Parallax S3 leads the Palm Sunday procession and plays "All Glory, Laud, and Honor!" Programmed using BlocklyProp - Code is here - http://blockly.parallax.com/blockly/my/projects.jsp#35904

Happy Pi Day!

It's 3.14 - So, happy pi day from Robotics Under the Stole!

Coming Soon!

Live link here - http://www.nationalroboticsweek.org/

On Facebook here - https://www.facebook.com/roboweek

Women in Robotics

This is the 2017 list for International Women's Day! Click here.

The list did not include my friend Carol Lynn Hazlett. What a mistake!

Introduction to BlocklyProp Programming

Here is a great article by Ken Gracey on Jameco Electronic Components in their Jameco Builds series. Take a look - https://www.jameco.com/Jameco/workshop/JamecoBuilds/introduction-to-blocklyprop-programming.html

Thanks to Jameco for sharing this article! While you are visiting, look at all the goodies Jameco sells. I got some of my very first electronics tools, testing equipment from them. Their catalog is a wonderful resource.

S3 Onboard OLED Sensor Observation Deck

It is possible to use BlocklyProp in ways not planned by Parallax. Blocks for the Propeller Activity Board can be downloaded and uploaded and appended to programs for the S3 (which has a simpler block set). This sort of use is experimental! Results are not guaranteed.

Doing so, I created this S3 BlocklyProp Onboard OLED Sensor Observation Deck - Line, Obstacle, & Light which uses blocks imported from BlocklyProp for the Propeller Activity Board.

The Observation Deck uses the OLED to display the Left and Right Line Sensor values, Obstacle Status for Left and Right (clear or blocked), and the Left, Center, & Right Light Sensor values. Values refresh in a loop.

See OLED Display with BlocklyProp on learn.parallax.com for reference. OLED pins - GND to GND, VCC to 3.3V, DIN to P0, CLK to P1, CS to P2, D/C to P3, RES to P4 on the S3 Hacker Port

BlocklyProp Code is #29065 and shared here - http://blockly.parallax.com/blockly/my/projects.jsp#29065 (low-res image below for length reference).