Robots and Physical Computing: programming

Showing posts with label programming. Show all posts

Thursday 4 April 2024

Saturday 18 July 2020

Speech Recognition in Scratch 3 - turning Hello into Bonjour!

The Raspberry Pi Foundation recently released a programming activity Alien Language, with support Dale from Machine Learning for Kids, that is a brilliant use of Scratch 3 - Speech Recognition to control a sprite in an alien language. Do the activity, and it is very much worth doing, and it will make sense! I would also recommend going to the machinelearningforkids.co.uk site anyway it is full of exciting things to do (for example loads of activities https://machinelearningforkids.co.uk/#!/worksheets ). Scratch 3 has lots of extensions that are accessible through the Extension button in the Scratch 3 editor (see below) which add new fun new blocks to play with.

The critical thing for this post is Machine Learning for Kids have created a Scratch 3 template with their own extensions for Scratch 3 within it https://machinelearningforkids.co.uk/scratch3/. One of which is a Speech to Text extension (see below). You must use this one not the standard Scratch 3.

My idea is to can I set it to react one way when I say "hello"; then say "french" and then say "hello" it says "Bonjour". Two other extensions are needed along with the Speech to Text one - one for speech to text and the translate shown below.

Ok, so to the fun bit. The listen and wait, and when I hear blocks are the key new blocks, and they do what they say. The three sets of the code are ones I used for this activity.

Thank you to Machine Learning for Kids for creating such a brilliant Scratch extension - this is well worth a play with.

All opinions in this blog are the Author's and should not in any way be seen as reflecting the views of any organisation the Author has any association with. Twitter @scottturneruon

Friday 30 June 2017

Cozmo is programmable

The incredibly cute robot Cozmo became even more engaging recently with the ability to program it. A recent update to the Cozmo app (see related links) to include Code Lab allowing programming of Cozmo through of a graphical programming approach based on Scratch Blocks.

An example of the code is shown below, getting Cozmo to:

Start moving around
Wait until it see a face
Says Hi Everybody
Moves forward
Sounds like a cat
Looks down and then raises it's forks
Acts 'grumpy'
Acts 'happy'

The video at the end shows this in action.

It is an easy to use tool and with a lot of the Cozmo actions available in the blocks, put a few blocks together and very quickly you have Cozmo doing some interesting and often funny actions. Is it very flexible, no; but it is not meant to be - it is meant to be easy to use and it is and great fun. Personally, I felt the app needed this addition, it adds the element to take this toy further into a coding toy (yes another one) that it feels, to me, it should be.

Related posts
Cozmo-Wall-E has a rival
Cozmo is coming to the UK
Android app
iPad app

All opinions in this blog are the Author's and should not in any way be seen as reflecting the views of any organisation the Author has any association with. Twitter @scottturneruon

Saturday 19 November 2016

kamibot

Kamibot was a recent kickstarter (https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/kamibot/kamibot-teach-your-kids-to-code) from the interesting named, Korean company, 3.14 Co., Ltd as a robot you can dress up in paper outfits.

It is actually quite a nice little kit that can be controlled via Android, IOS or PC (available at http://www.kamibot.com/default.php along with some of the plans for paper outfits). The software is a simple Scratch/Blockly style interface and programming is simple. Connecting the robot to the, in my case, an iPad was relatively easy. I would welcome a Mac version of the KamiBlock software but apart from that nice robot kit, that allows you to get programming quickly if you have used Scratch, Blockly or Crumble.

They have recently twitted about new piece of software for Android device - using cards on the screen in combination with their paper mapboard.

Kamicard, now available for download to Android users! Who says you need to know how to read to program? https://t.co/SrVZvhMcMF pic.twitter.com/bDv9DeqN4U
— KamiBot (@kamibot314) November 17, 2016

All opinions in this blog are the Author's and should not in any way be seen as reflecting the views of any organisation the Author has any association with. Twitter @scottturneruon

Sunday 20 March 2016

Playing with Ozobot Bit and Blockly

Previously I discussed the older Ozobot that were programmed by colours on paper or made to dance via an App. The newer Ozobot Bit still can be used in these ways but also can be programmed using a Blockly web-based interface at http://ozoblockly.com/editor, so are now programmable on tablets, but also PC, Macs, essentially anything that can run the webpage.

First stage is the calibration of the 'bot'
1. Hold the power button on the ozobot until it starts flashing with a white light.
2. Move to the white space that is similar to the bottom of the Ozobot, the wheels might start moving but as you get closer to the space they should stop.
3. The Ozobot should start flashing green - that is ok continue holding the ozobot to the screen until it stops flashing green - if it flashes red start again.

Build your code blocks and when you are ready press the power button on the Ozobot. Hold the ozobot against the white space again and holding it there press the load button. The white space should now be flashing different colours, but the ozobot should be flashing green programming the ozobot.

Now to run them press the power button twice. I have add a two second delay in the code so I can get my hands out of the way before they start moving. The video below shows two of them so through this routine twice
- 2 second delay;
- Zigzag a little
- Flash the lights through the rainbow colours;
- Move in an arc;
- Flash the lights a bit like fireworks going off

It is relatively easy to program these and fun, but you may have to hold the Ozobot to the screen for a while if you use a Mac or PC. They are cute and the flashing LEDs offers some interesting effects like the 'fireworks'.

All opinions in this blog are the Author's and should not in any way be seen as reflecting the views of any organisation the Author has any association with.

Robots and Physical Computing