Tag Archives: Raspberry Pi

Making Raspberry Pi Robots

Books, Technology, , , , ,

At the core of this post is a review of a new book, Learn Robotics with Raspberry Pi: Build and Code Your Own Moving, Sensing, Thinking Robots. I recommend it as a great above-basic level introduction to building a standard robot, learning a bit about the Linux operating system, learning to program in Python, and learning some basic electronics. However, I want to frame this review in a bit more context which I think will chase some readers away from this book while at the same time making others drool. But don’t drool on the electronics. Continue reading Making Raspberry Pi Robots →

STEM Holiday Gifts for Kids

Shopping guides and reviews, Technology, , , , , , , , , , ,

Tis the season to give robots and slime.

The two big news items for STEM holiday shopping this year are a) Robots have leveled off in complexity and price and b) slime has come of age. Continue reading STEM Holiday Gifts for Kids →

Kids coding and technology advance

Computers, , , ,

Over recent months, there has been an important advance in opportunities for kids to learn to code and mess around with technology.

The Scratch programming language is a project set at MIT. Scratch programming involves moving images, called blocks, from a pallet into a work area, hooking them together and maybe changing some values attached to them, in order to develop programs that mainly, but not exclusively, manipulate sprites. (See example of code blokcks above.) The project is located HERE. This is a full object oriented programming language with quite a few features that make it very powerful, for a kid’s toy. Continue reading Kids coding and technology advance →