We are proud to announce a new exciting project! 

We are developing a micro controller based robot which is programmed via MicroPython. The aim is to teach kids micro controller programming. Billions of micro controllers are sold each year and they all need skilled software developers so that washing machines wash, airbags deploy and music players play music.

We selected MicroPython as the programming language because it makes programming very easy. All that is required is a text editor. The memory on the micro controller appears as a flash drive for saving Python files. This also makes loosing files very difficult.

The following things can be learned with the robot out of the box:

• Switch lights on and off
• Dim lights via PWM
• Blink lights via timer interrupts
• Read battery voltage and power consumption via an analogue to digital converter
• Read button status via external interrupt
• Operate the stepper motors
• Communicate with the accelerometer via SPI bus
• Program the accelerometer to create an interrupt
• Store logging data on the SD card

The robot has been optimised for use by kids. There are no jumpers that can be lost and the reset switch can be disabled. We hope that the cost of the parts can be kept to approximately $25 to allow as many kids as possible access to the robot.