Egham Raspberry Jam - 25th of January

What a day. More than double the attendees. More than double the stands, more teachers and kids attending.  More fun and learning than ever before.

When the Egham Jam was announced back in December I thought we would do better than the last Jam (46 registrations) but was blown away by the response.
Maybe a lot of new Raspberry Pis were sold at Christmas.
We were not only 'SOLD OUT' but also had more people who wanted to attend as well as people who register who advised me they couldn't make it so their tickets were released.

In the end 90 attended, more than double the October event and a record for the Egham Jam.

I was also really delighted the number of educators who attended looking for ways to integrate the Raspberry Pi into their schools Computing work.

There were at least 12 show and tell standard, some of them had multiple displays making for a very interesting day.  Also, very delighted that on a number of stands children were leading the show and tells. Giving great demonstrations on what they have build.

I tried to meet everybody who attended as possible and got the chance to connect teachers and people with specific needs with others who I know from previous Jams demoed a similar project.

Below are some pictures from the event.  Lots of fun.  Roll on the next Egham Raspberry Jam.

Surrey & Hampshire Hackspace were out in force

Scrolling messages

Pirates and MiWars winner

Raspberry Pi Development solution in a box

Robots are go.  Controlled over Wifi

Kodi set up being demoed by a young engineer

PiTrol - build it yourself controller

Remote arm controlled in Python

RISCOS on an HDMIPi

Seven Segment of Pi display

Getting the Wifi network set up to demo Airplay

Minecraft and RetroPie

Scratch 

Robot arm controlled from Scratch

Seven Segments of Pi. It's a big one.

Robot Club - first session completed

Link to Previous Post on Preparing for the Club with details on Partner Used: http://winkleink.blogspot.co.uk/2014/11/preparing-for-2015-after-school.html


Today we had the first session of the new robot club I'm running at my kids primary school.
It is for year 6, so 11-12 year olds.

The club is based on the parts from the previous post. http://winkleink.blogspot.co.uk/2014/11/preparing-for-2015-after-school.html

Today the kids came in and there were 3 from last year, so 7 new which is great.
Also, the gender mix is 4 boys and 6 girls.  Sounds very positive from a gender equality then heard the robot club is clashing with football, so expect there are many boys already committed to football.

Still it was a great first session.

The goal for today was to build the chassis.  I wanted to give the kids a bit of a challenge so we worked it out together using the Chinese instructions and my previously built chassis.

A lot of bolts going in the wrong way round and parts in upside down. So, each team had to take their bits apart multiple time.

As we went through the hour I expected the kids to lose heart with the every increasing times they had to remake the chassis.  But, I was delighted that by the end they were very excited to have it built and really wanted to do more.  We had to stop as parents were waiting to collect the kids.

We wired up some of the motors and I showed that since the motors mirror each other than with the motors wired the same way that one wheel goes forward and the other goes backwards with the same red-positive / black-negative wiring.  I explained we can sort this out in code.

The best comment of the day from one of the girls was. "Today is the first time I don't want to leave school."

She was very curious about the 4x4 keypad, so I explained how it works.
Send a signal into each horizontal pin one after another and seeing which pin it comes out at.

Metal Note: try to bring a white board market next time.  Teachers take them away after their classes.


In preparation for next week I have to get all the chassis sorted. One of the motors had the tab ripped off so lucky I have a spare motor.

Then add the L298N H-Bridge and Arduino Nano compatible so coding can start next week.

Goals for next session.
Understand the wiring.
Code to make it go forward, backwards and turn.
Program to go around the centre section in the room.

Roll on next Monday.

Preparing for 2015 after school computer club

Over the past 2 years I have done a Code Club at my kids school using Scratch and last year included a bit of Arduino. Now in the UK computing is part of the school curriculum so the Code Club learning is now done in school time meaning there is not need for it to be done after school.
With this in mind for 2015 I've decided to ramp up the difficulty and go Arduino all the way with a robot course.

This time limited to 10 kids working in pairs as the complexity is higher and the projects will most likely be done over multiple weeks.

This will give the ability to build everything from a pre-programmed robot to a line following robot or an object avoidance robot. Also included an infrared sensor and remote so the kids can make a remote control robot.

All going well the kids will also be able to decorate their robots with unique bodies to make them more exciting.

In addition to the parts below I also have 36 rechargeable AA batteries for the club.

I'm looking forward to January already.

Below are the list of parts I plans to have for the 8-9 week club. 5 kits

Item	eBay Link	Price	QTY	Total
Robot Deck	http://ebay.to/10NBbMM	£7.48	5	£37.40
DC Motor H-Bridge	http://ebay.to/1GeGZyY	£1.55	5	£7.75
Arduino Nano compatible	http://ebay.to/1rRgTrh	£2.89	5	£14.45
5 x Breadboard 400 tie	http://ebay.to/1EcNoZs	£9.49	1	£9.49
Line following sensor	http://ebay.to/1wXWDKI	£1.19	5	£5.95
10 x Ultra Sonic sensor	http://ebay.to/1GeHwRl	£8.99	1	£8.99
Infrared sensor + Remote	http://ebay.to/1A40r0N	£1.35	5	£6.75
Wires M-M	http://ebay.to/1tujL19	£1.99	1	£1.99
Wires M-F	http://ebay.to/1tSRIKe	£1.99	1	£1.99
Wires F-F	http://ebay.to/1tSRRxf	£2.24	1	£2.24
Keypad 4x4	http://ebay.to/1wX1r4F	£0.99	5	£4.95
				£101.95