Mcookie micro adurino Lego blocks

[cteno4]

This is interesting. While probably being more expensive than cheap adurino units, they may have some easier to approach programming and assembly for those not wanting to get too deep in tech

 

http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/gadgets/a15601/mcookie-arduino-lego-microcontroller/?src=nl&mag=pop&list=nl_pnl_news&date=052015

 

https://www.microduino.cc

 

That's the great thing about this stuff, just gets better, cheaper and faster!

 

I'm hoping I can get the time soon to really dunk into adurino as I know it's within easy reach for me, just needs the time commitment to make it happen well and then grow.

 

Jeff

Edited May 20, 2015 by cteno4

[kvp]

It's very interesting. While it's not really lego electronics compatible, it does have 4 pins to connect to lego bricks. As far as i see it lacks any kind of standard connection to lego motors/sensors, but it does support servos and other non lego components. I couldn't find any information on the motor driver module, the one that would be the most interesting to me (as a lego train builder). It's a nice, easy to assemble set of mini parts though. I'm not sure about the reliability of the pogo pins, but maybe they got them right. The prices seem great and often cheaper than buying the unassembled parts locally in europe.

 

For a reference, i checked out the documentation for the quadcopter kit from the same manufacturer that uses the previous, conventionally stacked board. It has the following text:

 

Project: Microduino Quadcopter

Purpose: To control quadcopter via Microduino Joypad.
Difficulty: High
Time-consuming: Six-hour

The 6 hour construction time is for the assembly of the quadcopter and the joypad, uploading of the software on both controllers and calibration of the self balancing sensors and the bluethooth link. This sounds easy, compared to the complexity of the hardware.

 

On the other hand, i still couldn't find dedicated motor driver extensions, since the miroduino series clearly support only one driver/system, meaning a maximum of 4 single pole or 2 bipolar outputs, the same as a conventional arduino shield. (for railway automation, this means a single analog train and a pair of points)

 

While the newer ones are still a bit large to be used on board of N scale trains and very limited in i/o, the direction is clearly promising, so imho soon it would be possible to buy an N scale DCC decoder sized circuit complete with radio and motor control and maybe a camera or two. It's certainly doable right now with a light board sized computer in longer emu/dmu car, but the motor and the battery would need one extra car each.

[cteno4]

Yeah I poked around the site some and it was a bit spotty, but looked interesting. My hope is if they aim at Legos then they will try to make it not too tech heavy and a good intro for those a bit shy of electronics and programming.

 

I was wondering if they were using the magnetic couplers to also be circuit connectors. I've seen a few kids robotics kits do this to make coupling of modules and circuit connections easier. Worked for the tomytec building lighting power connectors!

 

Btw I did a little poking at starting the random room lighting program for an adurino nano and not bad at all, just have to sit down and start really programming and experimenting here when I get the chance.

 

Jeff

Edited May 20, 2015 by cteno4

[kvp]

 

 was wondering if they were using the magnetic couplers to also be circuit connectors. I've seen a few kids robotics kits do this to make coupling of modules and circuit connections easier. Worked for the tomytec building lighting power connectors!

No, the magnets are just holding together the boards, with an option for through hole M2 screws. The connectors are pogo pins, which is used for things like temporary test points, sim card holders in phones and the famous famicom/nes zero insertion force connectors many people had the fortune to use. But it's more child safe than the classic sharp and bendy pins while being smaller and cheaper to manufacture than the strong, but bulky telecom connectors that lego uses in its robotics kits or the high current edge connectors in rc (power functions) sets.

 

 

My hope is if they aim at Legos then they will try to make it not too tech heavy and a good intro for those a bit shy of electronics and programming.

All they did was to mention the support for an open source graphical language that supports conventional arduino-s and gives a similar programming environment as the one lego provides. (which was made for them by national instruments, makers of the labview laboratory automation software) Personally i think direct programming with the arduino language is way better, even for elementary school kids. (i leared to code on a commodore 64 when i was little) But the graphical language coupled with the no soldering required nature of the boards results in rather easy to assemble kits as long as there are no needs for extra parts that are not available from them. When soldering is required, the conventional, larger arduino-s are better, since it's easier to get compatible parts and connectors for them.

 

For a really kid friendly and reliable system, the ev3 kits (home and educational) from lego provides similar capabilities with a slightly more robust and much stornger hardware, but with a rather high price tag. The mcookie-s look like a size/price/robustness compromise between the currently available systems.

[cteno4]

The nice thing about more graphical packages to start out on is that there is a large fraction of people out there that are terrified of the idea of coding in more traditional manners, including kids. Graphical system allow them to filled with the logic with little need for larger structure, syntax, and yes spelling (myself being dyslexic has kept me from doing C deeply as my brain has issues enough with language let alone more random assortments of characters)! I too came in the very early days (very early 70s) learning most on my own, but I realize I was an anomaly all along in the last 40 years or so of playing with computers.

 

I taught computer and multimedia at my old high school (20 years after graduating from there, that was a trip!) and I was amazed at how even some of the very tech oriented kids were a bit intimidated by coding. I think it was as they were the beginning of the new tec generation growing up with simpler to use but powerful tech and never had to look under the hood much. With a bit of coaxing and using the simpler systems first I was able to get most all of them comfortable doing simple coding and realizing it was not beyond them or something to be afraid of. I was also able to get them more int figuring out what was going on when tech was not working correctly. Simple problem solving and them learning a bit mor about how the Magic tech actually worked went a long way and generated a lot of great satisfaction when they woud figure out the problem themselves and not just toss it aside and walk off.

 

Jeff