DIY Micro:bit Robots made from wood

I love how the micro:bit enables you to make your own robot out of wood. No fancy tools needed. You just need some wood, some classic tools like a fretsaw, and a micro:bit, a motor driver, two simple dc motors, a few servos, some wheels and some hacked Christmas lights.

This video is made for parents and educators who are interested in making their own robots out of wood and who want to teach kids how to do this.

All components can easily be used again in another project. Motors are attached using tiewraps, the motor driver board is attached with brass fasteners and iron beads.

The jellyfish robot is made by my daughter, the blue bird by a friend of hers. I made the Scratch cat robot and the robot with the Lego figure and the butterfly myself.

We used a fretsaw to make a base out of a wooden plate and drilled a few holes to be able to attach the motors for the wheels with tie wraps.

Fun fact: the three wheels are originally made for the mBot, I gave the two big ones a "bicycle tire".

Two different motor drivers are used in this video: the all-in-one robotics board of Kitroniks and a motor driver made by Waveshare. The last one couldn't handle more then three motors and servos at the same time (when powered by 4 AA batteries). For the bird robot and the butterfly/lego robot this wasn't enough. Therefore I chose the Kitroniks board for these robots, which is more expensive but also better.

A second micro:bit is used as a controller, by using the radio function of the micro:bit.

The code for the robot with the Lego figure and the butterfly can be found here as an example:

https://programmeren-met-scratch.blog...

Btw, the code became more complicated than I had hoped. I am used to Scratch which can handle way more things at the same time than the Javascript blockeditor.

If anyone knows a way to simplify my code, I would love to hear it!

On Twitter Simon Walters pinpointed me to his blog about AniBots. He suggests this new name for animal robots to equally engage boys and girls in designing and programming a robot. I like it.

Check out his blog if you're interested in this topic: http://simplesi.net/anibot_blog/.

Music credit: Kevin MacLeod.