We’ve seen a huge amount of excitement about the Robot Hack Day we’re running this Saturday, and we’d like to thank everyone who’s supporting the day (Cool Components, O’Reilly, and Mattel) as well as the team of robot experts who are lending their expertise – not forgetting you, the future Robot Engineering Corps of Manchester!
To make sure we all get the most from the day, there’s a few matters of housekeeping we need to address:
- Did you add yourself to and review the Wiki? The experts would benefit from knowing who you are, what you want to do, and how much previous experience you have with robotics and hacking. It’s also nice to see who else will be there, so help your fellow hackers out!
- Did you find, scavenge, or ‘borrow’ some equipment to hack? While we have supporting equipment (cables, solder, etc) you’ll need to bring some stuff to work with. Old toys, record players, VHS recorders – things with motors, moving parts, or ready-to-use parts will provide a basis for your building activity. Again, check the wiki to see what’s being suggested by the pros!
If you can’t get anything together for the day, don’t despair – Adrian Marshall, who’s running the Footballing Robot workshop, can provide a couple of cool robot kits – they’re very affordable introductions to soldering and building, but you’ll need to let us know in advance if you want to buy one on the day.
The Dragonfly (left, £12.76) is solar-responsive and powered by light, flapping its wings every 2 seconds and providing a great introduction to building electronics.
The WindowBream (right, £15.20) is an articulated, swimming robot, and introduces the idea of repurposing equipment and articulated motion.
Both kits are fun, easy to understand, and a great introduction for young enquiring minds (or foggier mature minds wishing to get back on track).
There’s still a few places left for Adrian’s Robot Footballing event, so sign up quickly – you don’t need to bring anything for this session, and Adrian is an expert maker who’ll have you building your own robot team in no time.
We have also released a few standby tickets for the Hack Day, so if you missed your chance before – go grab a ticket! Both events are free, but not valueless, so if you can’t make it and have already registered, please let us know in advance so we can free the space up for someone else on the waiting list.
Sally has suggested using the #hashtag #robothackday for all you twitterers, and we think this is a fine idea.
