I am able to write scratch programs and transfer them via the usb port. I am also able to connect the bluetooth (sometimes). Is it possible to transfer programs to the mbot via bluetooth? Some documentation would be nice - is there any?
thanks
Selwyn
I would like to know as well, as my tank is no longer connecting through bluetooth. It would help me with troubleshooting.
It is not possible to load a program over Bluetooth. This is a serial communication channel that mBlock uses to send commands to the mBot. When you load an Arduino program, it uses the onboard programmer and requires that the robot be connected via USB.
Really? My understanding is that you can run mBlock programs over Bluetooth / 2.4GHz WiFi, but you canât set up programs that start with an mBot Program block over Bluetooth because the AVRdude programmer is only available over the USB cable. I donât have any Bluetooth mBots, so I canât verify either way. 
Well, it isnât perfect, but it works. Double clicking a âWhen Flag Clickedâ block can immediately start and stop the robot, and using an âMbot programâ hat block requires a reset after starting it up.
Tobor, what did you have to do to make bluetooth programming work? I got the connection to work but mbot wonât let me upload my programs.
Iâm pretty dissatisfied with the lack of documentation for this product. My 9yo received the bluetooth mBot as a gift and we got it assembled pretty quickly. Tonight I installed the software to get to programming it in Scratch, which heâs used before. Getting it to work was pretty painful.
Here are my notes; I hope they help someone.
Weâre running on an older Macbook Pro, with Yosemite 10.10.4
It wasnât obvious (no docs), but we had to pair the mBot via the system Bluetooth control panel. Sort-of, because it doesnât stay paired, which is apparently OK. Turn on the mBot, open the System Bluetooth control panel, pray that the mBot appears in the device list after a few seconds. Tap the Pair button. It will pair, then flash a code, and report âDisconnectedâ. Grumble, but guess what - Success! In retrospect, itâs Bluetooth - it must be paired. But not everyone will know that.
Run the mBlock software (we installed v3.2 via the web. It took a bit of Googling to find it. Grumble.) Go to the Connect menu. Ignore the grayed out Bluetooth submenu because clearly thatâs not what youâre after. (!) Instead, go to Serial Port, and look for /dev/tty.Makeblock-ELETSPP. Select that because clearly thatâs what you want. (!) Look at the title bar of the main window and pray that it says âSerial Port Connectedâ. Also, the blue flashing light on the mBot bluetooth module should stop flashing and light up solid. If youâre lucky.
Write some Scratch code. OK, Iâve done Hour of Code, and Iâm a software engineer by trade, so this should be easy. It wasnât âeasyâ but ok⌠I found the mBot Program block and dragged that out, and also a âmove forwardâ block, which I configured for speed 100.
Run it. But How??? This stumped me for a while. I looked in the menus for an Upload command. I pressed the green flag. Repeatedly. Nothing. Then, all of the sudden the mBot moved forward (and wouldnât stopâŚ) What did I do? Apparently I had double-clicked the mBot program block. Yay. But really? Why is this hidden?
Experimenting a bit more, I discovered that you can toggle an advanced Arduino code-view by single-clicking the mBot program block. And thereâs an Upload to Arduino button hidden there.
Thatâs about all I figured out. I wrote a bit more code (our mBot can drive a square now.) I explored the âupgrade firmwareâ options but never got them to work - I suspect they require a USB connection but that isnât documented either. Sigh.
Makeblock: You got a lot of people to buy and gift your $79 kit to 9yo boys and girls this holiday season. Iâm certain most of them wonât figure this sequence out - more power to them if they do. Please take your money and hire some more engineers and write some better documentation.
@spolit ,
Thatâs odd.
All I had to do was write the code I wanted, connect the bluetooth to the board I wanted, and then double-click the hat block.
@TomSwift ,
Scratch is as simple as it gets, really. Sorry you had some issues 
Anyway, the issue with going forward forever stems from Arduino programming. If you put an âMbotâ hat block above your code, it requires a reset because Arduino puts all of your code under an infinite loop. If you use a Scratch âwhen flag clickedâ hat block, you should be able to double click to instantly stop the robot. 
My issues arenât really with Scratch, the language. They are with the lack of documentation, and on the discoverability of features in the mBlock IDE.
Additionally I think itâs odd that there arenât any default blocks that tell the robot to âmove forward 10â or âturn right 90â. Not having these pretty much guarantees that the first experience will involve running the mBot into a wall while the programmer frantically tries to figure out how to do a reset.
Youâre 12 - how did you know to double click the hat block? Maybe thatâs a Scratch-ism I wasnât aware of but everyone else is?
You can double-click the hat block or click the green flag over the stage pane (upper left hand pane with the Panda).
The motors do not come with encoders, so turning a specific number of degrees or moving forward a specific number of inches/cm is challenging because you have to work out the time required. Iâm working on a maze solver, and my solution for 90 degree turns is to have a black line that runs through the center of each square for the North-South / East-West axes and use the line following sensor to make the robot stop when both sensors are over the line. Running the code from the mBot works reasonably well, but the time lag due to the serial connection over WiFi just wasnât getting it done.
Did you work through the two PDFs that Makeblock provides for the mBot? They contain a lot of the information youâre asking about. You can find it here under the resource tab. It would be great if the links to the docs and software were on the front page, and perhaps Makeblock will get around to putting them there at some point. You do have to keep in mind that the Makeblock products are not LEGO Mindstorms, but there are a number of people working with them that are active in the forums. Just keep asking questions.
One of the first things I did was to make a simple move program and I found that I really needed to have:
mBot Program
wait until Button [pressed]
run [forward] at speed [70]
wait [1] second
run [forward] at speed [0]
to have a controllable robot. The Arduino runs in a continuous loop, as you note, so itâs REALLY important to remember to turn off the motors. 
@TomSwift
As per the âturn rightâ blocks, it should work if you use the default Scratch blocks âturn _â and âmove forward _ stepsâ, but youâll need to begin the program with a âWhen flag clickedâ block.
As per the question about me being 12, Iâve been using Scratch for around 4 years now, so it ended up being a pretty normal transition to figure it out. I used to just click the Flag, but I found that in mBlock it ended up being a bit easier. I honestly donât remember how I âknewâ how to click it. I guess it was just something I did, haha.
@chuckmcknight
Yeah, that looks right!