When a Mirobot drops through the letter box, it comes as a real surprise. Whereas most robots come in bulky packaging, the Mirobot sits in a simple cardboard box the size of a few stacked CDs. It’s easy to assume that it’s small as a result, but it’s actually testament to creator Ben Pirt’s talents: the packaging for the Mirobot becomes the robot itself.

The full article can be found in The MagPi 53 and was written by Gareth Halfacree.

The Mirobot’s body is constructed from laser-cut wood, and the kit takes the form of sheets of wood with the pieces still in place. Holes are cut out for the non-wood components, like the motors and circuitry, and the whole lot carefully assembled and held together with two elastic bands at the corners.

The result: very little goes to waste. The outer framework from each slab of wooden components is useless once popped out, but can be disposed of as compost or used as fuel in a fire, while everything else bar the cardboard outer gets put to use, even the elastic bands.

The build process is tool-free and simple: someone with no experience of electronics can easily follow the instructions, printed in colour with illustrative photographs, and end up with a working Mirobot in around 10 or 20 minutes. The only slightly tricky steps are inserting the non-keyed wires into the main circuit board, which must go in a specific way around, and calibrating the pen using the included tool, laser-cut from wood, as with everything else in the kit.

Ease of use

Once built, the Mirobot is powered by four AA batteries and operates entirely independently. Initially, the on-board wireless hardware, which uses the low-cost ESP8266 WiFi module, broadcasts as an unencrypted hotspot to which you can connect a smartphone, tablet, Raspberry Pi, or laptop in order to configure the device.

Here’s the second surprise: there’s no software to install. Everything on the Mirobot, from upgrading its firmware to programming it, takes place in your web browser. You can choose to use it offline in unencrypted or encrypted hotspot mode, or give it your WiFi details to connect it to your home or school network.

If you choose the latter, you gain access to the Mirobot Apps from the official website. These offer a wide range of choices for programming the robot: a spartan drag-and-drop block-based user interface which is available locally; the Blockly, Snap!, and Scratch block-based languages, though the latter is Adobe Flash-based and unavailable from a Raspberry Pi; Python or JavaScript text-based languages, complete with in-browser development environment and syntax highlighting; and a point-and-click interface for easy drawing. There’s also a direct remote control option, which allows you to control the Mirobot using on-screen buttons; coupled with a smartphone, this turns the Mirobot into an admittedly slow remote-controlled car. These are all available for offline use, too, through a Chrome app which can be installed into Google’s web browser on all supported operating systems.

In use, the Mirobot acts like your average turtle robot. It can raise or lower the pen, which you must provide yourself, to draw shapes on paper, turn in either direction, move forwards and backwards, and emit a beeping noise from its on-board speaker. The updated kit, now in version 2.0, also includes an optional infrared sensor, which when installed can be used to turn the Mirobot into a line-following robot.

More to learn

The manual does, however, stop just short of where an absolute beginner might have liked. In particular, you’ll find no reference to fitting the line-follower in the printed documentation, the need to calibrate the pen’s position and height, and calibrating the distance the robot travels by drawing and measuring a line, in order to produce clear shapes from your programs.

Fortunately, the official website includes a learning resource section with easy-to-follow guides for all these tasks. Cleverly, they’re also capable of connecting to any Mirobot on your local network: the page for calibrating the motors, for example, allows you to press a button to draw a line, then type in the length once measured, the result of which is sent back to the robot and stored in its permanent memory automatically. You’ll also find guides to drawing shapes, using the line-follower, and technical documentation on the Mirobot’s communications protocol.

Last word

5/5

It’s impossible to dislike the Mirobot. From its simple tool-free build process and clever packaging to its browser-based user interface, the machine is a joy from the moment it arrives and a sure-fire hit with younger makers.