Building the Happy CrickBot

My granddaughter and I still enjoy robots, including the one I built for her earlier ... and since I had an Adafruit CRICKIT platform I hadn't used much after the old Circuit Playground Express on it lost most of its neopixels (No, I don't know why - all the other ones (and I have more than a few) work great.)

So.. I bought a replacement CPX, and some more servos and after fiddling around came up with this.

Parts used:

CRICKIT platform

Circuit Playground Express

2 Servos connected to CRICKIT 1&2 (these are the "arms")

1 Continuous Servo connected to CRICKIT 4 (this is the scanner)

AA Battery pack for CRICKIT power

I decided to program it in Makecode - code here

There are a bunch of controls:

• Button A - arms swing right (or is that the robot's left?)
• Button B - arms swing left
• Button A+B - start/stop the rotating "scanner"
• Touch A3 - Swing arms and start/stop scanner
• Crickit touch #1 - same as Button A
• Crickit touch #2 - same as Button B
• Crickit touch #3 - swing left arm (also touch A6)
• Crickit Touch #4 - swing right arm (also touch A7)
• Bright light - swing arms / start stop scanner multiple times

For fun, I decided to use another of my CPX units as a DroidControl - MakeCode code here

The controller sends infrared signals:

• Button A - Swing arms right
• Button B - Swing arms left
• Buttons A+B - swing arms / start stop scanner multiple times

Tinkering Fun

With a platform like this, and especially using the MakeCode IDE, it's really easy to make changes and tweak the design. I added the smile() function to easily paint the "smile" on the Neopixels. Deciding to add the remote was likewise a breeze - I just add the dispatcher to pick up the IR signals and code the very(!) simple controller to send them. And, If I want to add more behavior to run with the remote, that will be very a snap.