We always like the kit from Monk Makes. It’s functional, comes with great documentation and most importantly is always a good price. The RasPiRobot board that you can currently buy scored well in our review a little while ago, so it’s nice to see a kit that uses it for a Pi robot in the way Simon Monk intended.
The full article can be found in The MagPi 54 and was written by Rob Zwetsloot.
This particular robot kit is two kits in one. As well as being able to create a basic robot that you can program, you have access to a push button and the Raspberry Squid RGB LED. These work on the RasPiRobot board without it needing to be built as a robot; however, it does also mean you can attach them once the robot is built. It’s an interesting concept as in theory you can use the button and LED as a ‘getting started with GPIO programming’ step and then move onto building the robot and doing even more.
As for the robot build itself, the process is nice and easy. The chassis is made up of one piece of laser-cut acrylic and it uses two motors to drive it. A caster wheel is attached to the rear so it can pootle about, and the battery pack can be attached to the underside. The Pi is merely stuck to the surface using some Blu-Tack or double-sided tape and the rest of the components slot neatly into the motor controller which attaches on top of the Pi. It’s very simple and there’s a couple of video guides from Simon that show you how to do it, although it would be nice to have a step-by-step visual guide as well. It took us an episode of the original Star Trek to build, so under an hour, although that does include us struggling to peel off the protective layer of paper from the chassis and find the rechargeable batteries for it.
Tough enough
Once built it’s quite sturdy. The chassis isn’t large enough to be bendy and the Raspberry Pi can be affixed firmly enough in place so it doesn’t fly off. The kit also comes with speed sensors in the form of timer discs you can attach to the motors if you want to get the extra sensors to add them. Speaking of adding sensors, there are plenty of spots along the chassis to add them. The front is especially good for line and proximity sensors, as well as adding a pan-and-tilt arm. You’ll have to do the research yourself to figure out how to get it connected up to the board, although that’s all part of the fun.
Programming it is very easy, using the same standard Monk Makes libraries. The instruction booklet that comes with the robot also provides some little tutorials on getting the LED and button working, as well as programming the robot for remote control and autonomy. The ultrasonic rangefinder also has a bit in there, so you can start programming with that as well. The great part about all these instructions is that you can combine them to do crazy things. For example, you could have the button start a little mission where it drives towards the nearest wall and uses the rangefinder data to change the colour of the LED as it gets closer. While a minor spin on the normal robot kit, it does open up a lot more types of customisation and play options that are much simpler to understand.
We very much like the RasPiRobot Rover and its kit. We’ve built a few other similar and simple robots and while they’re always quite good, they don’t quite go the extra mile like this. Not only that, but we can easily get our Raspberry Pi off it without having to fiddle around with tiny screws to do so. For the price, as well, it’s an excellent starter kit for kids interested in the Raspberry Pi and programming electronics.
Last word
4/5
A wonderfully put together piece of kit, the RasPiRobot Rover is a great intro to robotics that can also be used far beyond the beginner level.
