P2 Evaluation Board

Always fun when a package arrives from Rocklin, California, and Parallax! The limited-edition Propeller 2 ES Eval Board Rev B is designed for experimentation and characterization of the Propeller 2 multicore microcontroller engineering samples (2nd samples, Rev B silicon).  This P2 is the newest silicon from Parallax and has been 14 years in development.

Edit: It's alive! 

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving from Robotics Under the Stole! I am thankful for all of you and all you've taught me, and all you've shared. Thanks for reading too!

Image Credit: Thanksgiving | Robot Turkey 2.0 - Wisconsin Magpie

Holiday News from Parallax!

Great holiday news from my friends at Parallax. First up, for Thanksgiving week:

Mark your calendar! BIG Savings start Wednesday, November 27th! Free shipping + discounts. You won't want to miss it! 🤖

And for the Christmas season:

Parallax Staff Picks are coming Tuesday, 11/26! Let us help you with your Holiday Gift Giving! Find out what our favorites are and why! 🎁 Our Holiday Gift - Giving Guide coming soon!

Ken Gracey said, "There’s some fun stuff in there! I’ll need your picks for the next newsletter, Whit and Carol and Eric and Nikos Giannakopoulos!"

My reply, I "Will make my list and check it twice...!" This reminds of when I was little and the Sears "Wishbook" would come out! Nothing like something fun to play with under the tree!

Download for BlocklyProp!

Hey BlocklyProp users - GREAT news! It works! Now on blockly.parallax.com/blockly/ and demo.blockly.parallax.com/blockly/ - you can download ALL your projects on your computer in a compressed file for extraction. The files will be in an SVGE file format.

Open BlocklyProp (or DEMOBlocklyProp), look under My Projects - and the Download "button" is in the upper left directly under the BlocklyProp Bar. When you press the button, it will "fetch" your file, process them, save a zipped file in a location you choose.

Why does this matter? These files are then on your computer and can be extracted and opened in BlocklyProp Solo! From there you can modify them, rename them, save them anew, and load/run.

Give it a try - I have been playing with this and having a ball.

Be sure to post questions or issues here, so we can all learn from one another's experiences (and work on bugs if we need too).

Thanks, Parallax for another great BlocklyProp enhancement.

M.I.T. Mini Cheetah

M.I.T, The Massachusetts Institute of Technology, has shared a video of its Mini Cheetah robot. The four-legged bot can play a soccer ball, run, and jump. The Mini Cheetah weighs about 20 pounds and is controlled by 12 separate motors.

Big - That's Why They Call it Space

Not strictly robotic, but fun science stuff and demonstrates distances in an interesting way.

Parallax Forum Meme

A wonderful meme shared on the Parallax Forums by SaucySoliton. I can't tell you how much help and inspiration I have received from the generous members of the Forums.

Propeller 2 ES Evaluation Board

Parallax announced that this bad-boy was available to order on Friday, November 8. Priced at $150, I am really struggling not to pull the trigger (even if it is just to have one in my collection - the features and capabilities are probably a bit beyond me though). The P2 is the incredible new chip by Chip from Parallax. This evaluation board lets developers and hobbyists play and test. Take a look for yourself at https://www.parallax.com/product/64000-es

Also available now are all these related products... 

Or, see the whole family tree here - https://www.parallax.com/product/propeller-2

Congratulations - Parallax, Ken and Chip Gracey, and the whole P2 development team!

Star Wars D-O Droid at Target

Saw a tiny preview of a new robot in a Target commercial. Here is a screen clip...

And with a little help from some friends at the Parallax Forums (JonnyMac, especially), we tracked it down.

You can see it all at this link - https://www.target.com/p/star-wars-d-o-interactive-droid-target-exclusive/-/A-76457119 Be sure to check out the video and the 3D model. Pretty good price.

Finally, here is the commercial https://ispot.tv/a/o93m

"The droid you're looking for" appears at around the 52-second mark. 

Edit: Thanks to Eric Ostendorff, my old robotics' pal, for finding this great video - https://video.disney.com/watch/a-visit-to-hasbro-galactic-builders-5937708e901a5ebd6b4f2a72

Circuit Sculpture Hack Chat

Hackaday says "Join us on Wednesday, November 6 at noon Pacific for the Circuit Sculpture Hack Chat with Mohit Bhoite!" Mohit designs and builds hardware at his day-job at Particle. By night, however, the wires and pliers come out, and he makes circuit sculptures that come alive. Check out his portfolio; you won’t be disappointed. 

I guess I like this so much because it reminds me of the creativity of the BEAM robotics' designers.