Help with interchangeability

#1

I may have jumped in over my head with respect to time available. My daughter has three children so I figured I’d get each a robot – mBot Neo, mBot Ranger, and mBot Mega. I didn’t take the time to see how much interchangeability there is between the “bots” – parts, sensors, programs, etc. Can someone give me a concise summary?!

I’m even more concerned now that I’ve downloaded a “book” resource that is entitled something like Beginners Guide and its 273 pages! by Rooms. . . .

Thanks. Looks like a lot of fun.

#2

Hi Mack

Stick with my book - it does explain a lot of the basics. See the recent Forum posts “Can Anyone Help This Low Tech Grandma?” - this has lots of explanation on the merits of these Bots.

Lindsay

#3

Hey Lindsay, I got your book link from “Grandma’s” posts!! I hope I don’t have the delivery problem she dealt with.

I got the two-page “intro” of yours for mBot Ranger, also. Have you finished that book, yet?! Seems I saw a Roman Numeral III on it. Does that mean there’s a II somewhere?

I also taught high school, but for 11 years, not 30-40 like you. Anything that wasn’t English!! We implemented a “pre-engineering” program at our high school early this century called Project Lead the Way. Dealt heavily with CAD/Inventor. Also was a mentor for high school FIRST Robotics team for several years while teaching and then three years of FIRST LEGO League after retirement at a local elementary school. You’d think I’d be prepared for mBot but it looks like I really am in over my head. No MBE for me – congrats to you!

Thanks.

Mack

#4

Hi Mack

Thanks for your brief potted history.

I am indeed a retired schoolmaster now 74 years old - I was in the right place at the right time in private education in the early 1980’s teaching serious engineering (as PCs and Windows software developed ) to have the time, the freedom and the backing to be in the forefront of inventing how to teach computing - I was considered at the time to be a Word /Excel guru and now I do have time on my hands to play with Makeblock’s robotics stuff and attempt to write books on it. I am getting more & more out of sync. with experiments & notes - its soooo easy to get side-tracked …

… My first open-source book ‘mBot & Me I - a beginners guide’ is, as you have found, featured on the Makeblock Education website pages where it remains available for download. Makeblock has ‘mBot and Me IV - the Ultimate Challenge’ somewhere in the pipeline for adding to their Education pages - when they get round to it! - Makeblock Europe assure me that “it will be soon”.

Having recently bought both ‘mBot Ranger’ and ‘Codey Rocky’ models to experiment with, I re-arranged the volume sequence to accommodate these. Following on from Vol. I. there will now be: ‘mBot & Me II - Codey Rocky’, followed by ‘mBot & Me III - the mBot Ranger’, the already uploaded ‘mBot & Me IV - the Ultimate Challenge’ and ‘mBot & Me V - the Coding Adventures’.

I hadn’t planned on documenting ‘Cody’, but after seeing what it can do, I am quite excited about its coding potential and have now begun writing about it in some detail. ‘Ranger’ is progressing well too, but I keep getting side-tracked from work on these.

I have made the most progress recently on Vol. V the 'Coding Adventures’, which I hope to complete early next year. I have about 110 pages on part 1 of this, ‘mBot and the Magical R. Dwino-See’ (Arduino C) and about 50 pages so far on part 2 ‘mBot and the Mysteries of Mext’ (using and understanding the Extension Builder software).

I intend that there should be several more parts to these adventures too; one on MicroPython, possibly one on bot-to-bot communication techniques (I am experimenting with this right now) and one on interfacing mBlock with Excel. I also have about 20-or-so pages on ‘Creating Your Own Bespoke Cables’ etc. which might feature as an addendum to the adventures.

regards

Lindsay

#5

Keep up the good work, Lindsay!

I’ve worked with another family of grands with a small model railroad layout – they are into cars, jobs, college, etc. now. Recently I received a Dr. Duino model railroad edition/kit. I’ve found that my soldering expertise is about the same level as my programming. About 85-90% of the module seems to function; dang!

But, I’ll be interested in your mBot Ranger (volume III) as well as R. Dwino-See info. I’m hoping for some interchangeability between the robots and the train. . . . We’ll C about that.

#6

Hey, @Mack13, the mBot Neo, mBot Mega, and mBot Ranger sensors are not interchangeable.

mBot Mega uses Arduino style pin wires.
mBot Neo uses mBuild, which may or may not be compatible even with an adapter.
mBot and mBot Ranger use RJ25 connectors.

Adapters

RJ25 to 6P6C (this doesn't have a picture, try searching Google):

https://www.robotshop.com/products/makeblock-me-rj25-adapter-v21

RJ25 to pin wires:

https://www.robotshop.com/products/rj25-dupont-wire-2pk

mBuild wires to pin wires, you can maybe find on Google. I’ll see what I can do.

Thanks for your time,
Best_codes

#7

Hey Best,

Thanks for links. I’ve also ordered the Electronic Add-on Pack for mBot/Ranger/Ultimate/Mega. It’s supposed to contain, among other items:
1 x Me RJ25 Adapter
2 x 6P6C RJ25 cable - 20cm
1 x 6P6C RJ25 cable - 35cm
Since Ranger and Mega are both mentioned, I was hoping this would indicate some amount of interchangeability! Of course, the description suggests 8 electronic modules included and I can only count 7 in the list and in the photo.

Oh well, what’s a little challenge and adventure?!

#8

Great! Can I help you with anything else?

#9

You can probably help with a lot of other questions!. . . as they develop. Thanks.

#10

:blush: Thank you!

#11

Got mBot Mega today and assembled most of the hardware in a little over 1 1/2 hours! Another hour after dinner playing around with the wiring and finishing up. No major problem with robot itself, but I wish that I had smaller fingers and that I didn’t drop the small parts on a patterned rug over and over and over again.

Fortunately, I only mis-wired one sensor and fixed that before the test run. And, surprise!, it DID run pretty much like it was supposed to. Maybe tomorrow I’ll try a program or two.

I’m interested in maybe working up a mat to give a challenge to programming for the kids. Looks like maybe I’ll draw something on posterboard or cardboard box. . . .

#12

I’m glad it works fine for you!

#13

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