Educational Robotics With The Raspberry Pi

What is the Raspberry Pi and where did it come from?
The history of the Raspberry Pi computer goes right back to the 1970s, the dawn of the home computer age in the UK. Its designers were part of the team at Acorn Electronics, the manufacturer of one of the first successful home computers, the Acorn Electron. Later, the same team won a contract from the BBC to design and build a microcomputer for schools, which became the BBC Micro. I’m a bit nostalgic about this, as I used a BBC Micro to collect and analyse data for my Ph.D. experiments in the early 1980s.
In 1983 Acorn started looking at a successor to the BBC Micro, the Acorn Business Computer. They chose to use a new type of processor, based on a new architecture called RISC (Reduced Instruction Set Computing). They couldn’t find any suitable processor to use so, in that good old-fashioned British way they decided to design their own, which was christened ARM (Acorn RISC Machine). This development attracted the attention of Apple, who needed a processor for their upcoming Newton PDA. This led to the formation of ARM Ltd, a joint venture between Acorn, Apple and a semiconductor manufacturer called VLSI Technologies.
Many iterations later, processors using the ARM architecture are at the heart of billions of devices, from the iPhone, to iPads, to the new Apple Silicon Macs, and a whole bunch of other stuff, including the Raspberry Pi.
The Raspberry Pi is a single board computer. It is designed to be cheap, flexible, easy to use and easy to program. There are currently four types of Raspberry Pi available:
Pi 3 and Pi 4 series Single Board Computers
About 100 x 50 mm, these boards have a full set of ports. The Pi 4B includes pairs of full-sized USB2 and USB3 ports, a USB-C port for power, Gigabit Ethernet, 2 micro-HDMI monitor ports, a 3.5mm audio in/out port and a 40-pin header. Bluetooth and WiFi are also supported. As with other Pi boards, there’s a micro-SD card slot for storage. They also have a connector for a Pi camera and a 40-pin General Purpose Input/Output (GPIO) connector. The Pi 4 series are the fastest and most expensive Raspberry Pis.
The Pi 3 and Pi 4 series of boards support the full Raspberry Pi Raspbian operating system. It is also possible to load lots of other systems onto them, including ROS, which is a system that is specifically designed for robots.
Pi 400
The Pi 400 has a similar architecture to the Pi 4, but it is encased in a small keyboard, harking back to the earliest days of home computing, when pretty much all computers were built like this. Designed as a highly portable desktop computer. Compared to the Pi 4, the camera connector and audio ports are missing. It has a USB 2 port is intended for a mouse, 2 USB 3 ports, twin micro-HDMI sockets, a USB-C port for the power connection and a micro-SD slot. The Pi 400 is a really good value small desktop. Like its siblings, the Pi 400 also has a GPIO connector, but an adapter is really needed to use it effectively.
The Pi 400 has the same support for other operating systems as does the Pi 4 series.
Pi Zero series
The Pi Zero series of boards are all the same size " about 58 by 30 mm. They have a single mini-HDMI monitor port, two USB Micro-B ports an SD card slot and a camera connector. The Pi Zero’s camera port is narrower than the standard port, so an adapter cable is needed to connect a Pi camera to it. Several variations of Pi Zero are available, version 2 being the most recent. Those designated with a W include WiFi functionality, and those with an H have a pre-soldered GPIO header.
Although most robotics applications of the Pi Zero make use of Raspbian, it is also capable of running any other OS supported by the Raspberry Pi architecture.
Pi Pico
The Pi Pico microcontroller is the newest and cheapest form of Pi board. It is even smaller than the Zero board but leaves out everything from the other Pis except for the GPIO header, a single micro-USB port and, in the Pico W variant, WiFi. Like the Zero, the Pico also comes in an H version with a pre-soldered set of header pins, but these are arranged as one set of 20 pins along each side of the board. Programming of the standard Pico must be done using a computer connected to its USB port. The computer runs Thonny, a Python development environment that is tailored to the Pico. The onboard memory of the Pico is very limited, so it doesn’t have an OS as such.
A great use of the Pico is to learn how computers can be connected to different electronics " perhaps sensors like a thermocouple, light or distance sensor " and different outputs such as LEDs, motors and speakers.

Why is the Raspberry Pi good for robotics in schools?
They’re cheap, especially the smaller boards. Picos are under £10, Zeros range from £10 to £20 and Pi 4s can be had from around £50-£100 depending on the amount of RAM. The Pi 400 sells as part of a starter kit including the computer, mouse, HDMI cable, SD Card and power supply for about £120.
They’re programmable using many different programming languages and hence are suitable for students of varying age and ability.

Some robots that are powered by the Raspberry Pi
Kitronik’s Autonomous Robotics Platform (ARP)
This is a two wheeled driving robot with Ultrasonic and line sensors. It can be enhanced with a second Ultrasonic sensor pointing backwards, a pen to draw turtle type graphics, and up to four servos, one of which can be used to raise and lower the pen. The ARP uses a Pico H, programmed using Thonny running on a computer. It comes as a simple kit with only 8 parts, which can be built by anyone aged 8 and over. The ARP retails at about £40 and is somewhat cheaper if purchased in a class set of 20 robots.
CamJam EduKit No 3 " Robotics
This kit is deceptively simple, costing only about £20, but it offers a lot. Not least, it can be used with different versions of the Pi. There are also the existence of several cool 3D printable chassis to use with it. I am building it around a Pi Zero 2W, which is currently around £11.
The Pi Zero 2W is really a small version of the 3 and 4-series computers. On a circuit board that is roughly the size of a stick of chewing gum there are 2 Micro USB ports for power and peripherals, a micro-SD slot for storage, a mid-sized HDMI connector and a Pi camera connector.
Pimoroni Trilobot
Trilobot is yet another driving robot. It comes in two forms. The base kit (£52) includes all the mechanical bits and pieces to build the robot. The full kit (£130) adds a Pi 4, camera, and power bank to the mix. The mechanical parts are all high quality and fit together well, though the complexity of some parts of it would make it hard for anyone under 11 to attempt it. Care also needs to be taken, as I found out when I managed to destroy the camera board when building my robot.
Trilobot also supports the STEMMA and QWIIC range of components, making it possible to add different types of sensors, such as an orientation sensor, GPS or air quality monitor.
If you are interested in hearing a bit more about how RobotFun can help you with planning your next school visit then why not get in touch here.
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