Flex Gripper

Carol Lynn Hazlett's Flex Gripper adapter for the Parallax Gripper is looking really good. This grew out of a Zoom meeting discussion with Eric Ostendorff, Ken Gracey, Carol, and me.

How Do You Solve a Problem Like Maria?

Blind date on a Forbidden Planet?

Catapult Robot for Ping Pong Basketball Uses BASIC Stamp 2

This great project was featured in the latest Parallax Newsletter. Be sure to watch both videos - the one introducing Dr. Nickols in hyperlinked below as the "must-see video."

The popular BASIC Stamp 2 module continues to be used in college mechatronics and high school programming courses. Educational customers Frank Nickols and Julian Potter of the Bristol Robotics Laboratory in the United Kingdom created a robot which calculates the trajectory of a ping pong ball to repeatedly catapult it into a basket. This project covers many learning objectives of an engineering class: mechanical systems and design, manufacturing with jigs, mathematical modeling and CAD, mechanical structures, electronic controls, real-time programming, robotics, and machine learning.

Dr. Nickols has been teaching with Parallax microcontrollers for over 20 years at universities in the United Kingdom, Singapore, China, Brunei, and Hong Kong. This must-see video introduces Dr. Nickols teaching approach which combines practical engineering, business, and communication. 



Great stuff!

Erco's Figure 8

Something new for Erco... (Eric Ostendorff, Carol Lynn Hazlett, Ken Gracey, and Nikos Giannakopoulos all got one of these RoverCs from Carol Lynn - Roy Eltham got his own).

Beat y'all to it! I also did this with the Parallax FLiP, but lost the video! Ugh!

I will re-shoot later. My FLiP set up for the RoverC is still temporary and I have to take all apart to remove the batteries.



UPDATE: As promised, here it is with the Parallax FLiP.

Sushi Bot

Saw this today on Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives. Cool robot!

Parallax's S3 is on Sale!

If you are looking for a great introduction to robotics, I honestly believe you can not do better than Parallax's Scribbler 3 (S3). It is used by students in elementary schools, middle schools, high schools, and universities. It has more features and sensors in this "ready to use" package than you can imagine. It is hacker friendly, and allows for endless ways to learn and experiment. What is more, it is on sale now. Wonderful online learning resources are available for free from Parallax (as always). Search here at Robotics Under the Stole for "S3" to see what I've done with mine! See here - https://www.parallax.com/product/28333

From the Parallax Newsletter Today

Wireless Programming of the S3 Robot Using the WX Module Above, we pointed out that the Scribbler 3 Robot is for elementary and middle school students, but that wasn't true! Customer Whit Stodghill (author of Robotics Under the Stole - The Notes of a Priest and Roboticist) has almost every product we've made, including a Scribbler 1, 2 and 3! Mr. Stodghill created a Tiny Tutorial to show how the S3 Robot can be programmed wirelessly from BlocklyProp with our WX Module. We've posted that video on our YouTube Tiny Tutorial Playlist. See the Wireless Programming Video on YouTube

Boxes of P2s

Incredible news from Chip and Ken Gracey, and Parallax. The P2 chip is Parallax's latest and greatest custom designed silicon chip. Congratulations to all. For those who have never taken a look, you would not believe what Parallax Forums' members are doing with these chips! Take a look at forums.parallax.com Go to the P2 section.