Ask HN: Best way to learn robotics with a 10 year old? • Hacker News Board

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

#101

Post by badcppdev » Mon, Jul 29, 2024, 4:38 PM UTC

psychomugs wrote: post #92

GordonS wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow, really impressed with this! I'm sure my kids would absolutely love to build something like this, just as I would :) Is there some kind of guide available? I've never built something like this before, but have some XP with Rpi and breadboarding. Oh, and I don't have a 3D printer.

Thanks! There is a guide available in the repo's wiki: https://github.com/hrc2/blossom-public/wiki Our contributors' forks and extensions may also be useful: https://github.com/interaction-lab/blossom-public https://github.com/interaction-lab/BlossomNav Regarding sourcing the parts, there are online services available to order 3D-printed parts as you would a PCB. The *.stl files are available in the wiki. Though with…

In your build guide you write:

"Assembly Instructions - how to build a Blossom. In our experience, this takes about 2-3 hours for first-timers once you have all the parts cut and printed."

This is just my opinion but I feel it would be clearer if you wrote something like:

For a first-timer who can crochet or knit it might take: 1. 1-2 hours to cut the wooden parts

2. 1 hour to print the 3D parts

3. 2-3 hours to assemble the 'skeleton' of the robot

4. 4 hours to knit the skin for your blossom.

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

#102

Post by fivestones » Mon, Jul 29, 2024, 6:31 PM UTC

jes5199 wrote: post #93

bunderbunder wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The main thing I got out of teaching myself how to do it from scratch is the discovery that there's possibly nothing more frustrating and less satisfying than spending days and weeks designing and building relatively simple electronics projects from scratch and then discovering all the fascinatingly inscrutable ways your designs can completely fail to work. This isn't to say that there aren't people who love it. But…

I feel the opposite! I can usually get components next-day on Amazon, and I can get entire circuit boards _assembled_ from China in about a week. Maybe I'm not trying to do anything particularly hard, but I keep being pleasantly surprised when things work on the first or second try

Where do you get your circuit boards?

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

#103

Post by alan_russell » Fri, Aug 02, 2024, 1:58 AM UTC

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?

It supports most of the ESP32 series boards, which are very cheap and powerful. For beginners, microbit is probably the best choice.