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Ask HN: Best way to learn robotics with a 10 year old?

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Re: Ask HN: Best way to learn robotics with a 10 year old?

#51

Post by Joel_Mckay »

The LEGO Technic Motor Kit is the best introduction.

A snap-together kit built RC car is the best way to teach servo control, motor ESC, and basic battery handling concepts.

3d printer kits like Voron or Prusa is the best way to learn stepper motor motion platforms. The FreeCAD/CAM workflow is identical most CNC gcode based machines.

The cheapest introduction to electronics theory is a Ham radio license. This will answer how RF remote controllers work, and develop an intuition about EE design.

Get a bulk pack of Arduino hobby boards, resister pack, and LEDs. This allows you to bring together all these bits to solve robotics problems.

Building a turtle bot is super easy with the above skills.

Remember to have fun, =3

Re: Ask HN: Best way to learn robotics with a 10 year old?

#52

Post by xrd »

rluble wrote: post #41
PaulHoule wrote: post #2

I was going to recommend https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lego_Mindstorms but is is discontinued. In terms of easy of build and programming these were great. This kit is still available https://education.lego.com/en-us/products/lego-education-spi...

[dead]

I can't find a buy button. Is this only for EU customers, perhaps?

Re: Ask HN: Best way to learn robotics with a 10 year old?

#53

Post by xrd »

alan_russell wrote: post #46

Regarding programming environments, I highly recommend MicroBlocks( https://microblocks.fun/ ). I was a big MicroPython fan before, and since switching to MicroBlocks, I've never looked back. If your child has experience with Scratch, then MicroBlocks will make him feel very familiar.

Is there a board you recommend?

Re: Ask HN: Best way to learn robotics with a 10 year old?

#54

Post by thereisnospork »

ijustlovemath wrote: post #47
potatomaster2 wrote: post #24

Many of these comments are about robotics as it's taught now, focusing on code and cameras and algorithms and motion planning. As someone who's built both BattleBots and Professional Robotics for work, BattleBots is a great way to get out of equations and hands on fabrication, manufacturing, testing, and scrappiness that is so hard to reach in mechanical and electrical engineering. And unlike FIRST or Lego robots, it…

The main issue with this is cost, few can afford the thousands it would take to build a competition bot like that. However! I do think you could easily adapt it to a smaller embedded form factor and do like a beyblades style battle in a tiny arena. Definitely agree about being hands on and open ended, the skills you learn will take you very far in engineering but also just in life!

I can't say I've looked into it in any detail, but I've seen 'antweight' and other extremely small/lightweight battle bot videos pop up on my youtube feed from time to time. Stuff that mostly looks 3d printed fighting in more or less an aquarium tank.

Re: Ask HN: Best way to learn robotics with a 10 year old?

#55

Post by dlipovetsky »

xrd wrote: post #53
alan_russell wrote: post #46

Regarding programming environments, I highly recommend MicroBlocks( https://microblocks.fun/ ). I was a big MicroPython fan before, and since switching to MicroBlocks, I've never looked back. If your child has experience with Scratch, then MicroBlocks will make him feel very familiar.

Is there a board you recommend?

I found this overview on the microblocks site linked by the parent comment: https://wiki.microblocks.fun/en/boards/supported. The list includes the micro:bit, which I can recommend from experience, but the rest also look like good choices.

Re: Ask HN: Best way to learn robotics with a 10 year old?

#57

Post by gertlex »

05 wrote: post #14

Battle bots are not exactly robotics, they’re RC cars with extra servo channels. Personally I find them boring compared to FPV, but the entry is pretty much the same - watch YouTube tutorials. You could find a book but anything you’d find there would be outdated, unless you need the absolute basics like Kirchhoff's circuit laws - which are as useful for building stuff as set theory is useful for writing wrappers for…

You /can/ totally do it hardmode though. I did small plastic battlebots several years ago, and I went for Xbee teleop communication to a microcontroller, controlling PWM motor drivers etc. (no, didn't go far enough that this gave me any competitive advantage)

But my real passion is tying together servos/microcontrollers/motors letting me make custom built teleop'd quadrupeds with airsoft guns, lasers and cameras...

There's a lot of stuff you can do in robotics before you get to true autonomy.

(just rambling, inspired by your comment; nothing you said is wrong :) )

Re: Ask HN: Best way to learn robotics with a 10 year old?

#59

Post by anfractuosity »

awahab92 wrote: post #43
anfractuosity wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Regarding the arm, are you thinking of a particular kit? Those servos look really interesting, so you can read their position via a UART type interface? I've only played with cheap PWM servos before.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39902205 - saw this a few months ago, was going to make like 6 for 3 robots to build legos or playdough sculptures or something

Thanks, that's very interesting, bookmarked! I found https://github.com/thomashiemstra/fred whilst searching, which also uses dynamixel motors, but very expensive ones.

It does look very smooth motion-wise though!

Re: Ask HN: Best way to learn robotics with a 10 year old?

#60

Post by Peteragain »

We did computers and a 10 year old via raspberry pis and Lego. The pis give you a full operating system with WiFi and scratch plus gpio pins, plus a well developed catalogue of peripherals and community. Step one is to blink a LED, step two, drive a hobby servo off a gpio pin. Step three add more servos including continuous rotation ones with wheels. Step four: buy a 3D printer and print specialist Lego bits. All with a sob for a tenner.
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