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We teach baby robotics by playing: BQ Zowi robots



Many parents of modern children would like to start teaching their children the basics of programming, electronics and robotics from an early age. And the children themselves often show a desire to do science, electronics, and digital technologies. But the problem is that the usual learning of the same robotics will be boring and obscure for a child. The same goes for programming. But there is a way out, you can teach by playing.

In principle, there are many different kinds of children's educational constructors, some of which we wrote on our blog . Now we want to talk about an interesting alternative to boring activities - these are robots of the BQ Zowi family. A big plus of robots is the ability to customize, write their own control programs, synchronize the actions of several robots. Let's see how it all works.

Developers


The company, which produces Zowi , was founded by six Spanish engineers in 2003. Initially, they were engaged in the creation of flash drives, which showed themselves well. Then the company released an electronic reader, after - began to develop mobile phones.
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A couple of years later, BQ switched to the development and production of other types of devices, including 3D printers. In general, the philosophy of BQ is the support of people who can do something with their own hands. Even in the line of smartphones with tablets, this is noticeable, BQ releases modifications of its devices on Ubuntu, Cyanogen, etc., relying on fans of all sorts of customizations.

Among the relatively new BQ products, we can recall such 3D printer models as the Witbox, Hephestus and Hephestus 2.



Back to the robots


BQ Zowi is another development of this company, which is a training robot with a fairly simple design. The Zowi case is printed on a 3D printer. The robot can react to external factors, identify obstacles. You can manage all system actions using the Bitbloq application. This is a simplified programming language where commands are given using ready-made blocks. The structure of the control program is composed of these blocks, and the robot performs everything that is written in it.


The robot can be disassembled and assembled, change its appearance and program. A teacher at school can also use a robot to teach children, and this applies to students of all ages. Children 6 years and older very quickly understand what and how to do with the control program. As an experiment, 6-year-olds were given robots and tablets, leaving them to deal with the principle of control. Some children in 15-20 minutes were able to master Bitbloq to create control programs. In general, no one had a problem understanding Zowi.

image

The main components of the robot:


To the control device (tablet or smartphone on Android) it connects using a USB cable or using Bluetooth. Rechargeable battery lasts up to 8 hours.


The robot can move, avoiding obstacles. This was made possible by equipping Zowi with ultrasonic sensors. His eyes are not photocells, but ultrasound sensors. By closing these sensors in a working robot, you can see how it tries to avoid obstacles. In addition, the robot feels when it is touched, and hears sounds (thanks to the microphone). LEDs on the “face” of a robot can reflect its emotions in the form of emoticons.

Learning in the form of a game begins with the simplest actions, in the process a child or an adult will get acquainted with new features of Zowi. In the form of the game is provided and learning some basic programming.

If there is a 3D printer, the body of the robot can be upgraded, creating more and more new images. The robot platform is open, so developers are able to create many projects with Zowi. The sources of some of these projects are available on GitHub . Zowi is still compatible with Arduino and Raspberry Pi.

Project examples


From the robot, you can create an intrusion detector into the house. Thanks to the ultrasonic sensors, the system will be able to quickly determine the fact of extraneous interference. As soon as this happens, Zowi begins to make a sound. Of course, there is no question of using a robot as a serious security system. However, the child will be able to understand that someone (pet, for example) came into his room .

Another project is a demonstration of ultrasound and systems based on it. Students will be able to understand how a robot, bats, dolphins use echolocation for orientation in space.


From robots you can make a single system - Zowi learns to dance, make numbers, perform other actions. Learn more about the modular programming language for the robot here .

Specifications


Equipment:


Where can one buy


You can buy Zowi in the store Madrobots .



Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/402089/

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