Modular Robotics cubelets robot blocks User Manual

Getting Started Guide

1860 38th St.

Boulder, CO 80301

www.modrobotics.com

1. Make Your First Robot

The Dimbot – Uses a clear Flashlight Action block, black Distance Sense block, and a blueish-gray Battery block. It doesn’t matter where you put the Battery block.

When you snap together a Battery block, a Distance Sense block, and a Flashlight Action block, the Flashlight Action block lights up. You control its brightness by moving your hand or an object closer or further from the “eyes” on the black Distance block.

This robot’s light dims when you move your hand away, so you could call it a Dimbot.

2. Understanding Your Cubelets

Cubelets come in three types: Sense blocks, Action blocks, and Think blocks. Sense

blocks are black, Action blocks are clear, and Think blocks are different colors. Most Cubelets have five connection faces and one special face, which identifies the function of that Cubelet. Others have six connection faces and their function is indicated by their color.

Every Cubelet has a small LED light in one corner. When the Cubelet is part of a robot and the robot’s Battery block is turned on, the LED light is on, too. The LED light shows that the Cubelet is getting power and talking to its neighbors. Each Cubelet robot must have one Battery block which powers all the other blocks in the robot.

The Battery block has a small switch. When you slide it to the “O,” the Battery block is off. Slide to the line, “|,” and it is on. Turn it off to save battery life when you aren’t playing with your Cubelets.

The Battery block has an internal, rechargeable battery. To recharge the Battery block, plug it into a micro-USB power source.

Each connecting face of a Cubelet has three conductors. The outer ring and magnets conduct ground; the inner metal ring conducts power; and the center pin conducts data from one Cubelet to the next. These three conductors must connect with their neighboring counterparts in order for two Cubelets to communicate.

3. What’s a Robot?

A robot is a machine that senses its surroundings and acts on its surroundings. Every robot needs a Sense block and an Action block. Sense blocks are black and Action blocks are clear.

Every robot needs power. The blue-gray block is the Battery block. The Battery block has

4. Swap Sense Blocks

Now take out the Dimbot’s Distance Sense block. Put a Brightness Sense block in its place. You still have a flashlight robot, but now its brightness depends on the light around it.

Test it: Cover the Brightness Sense block with

an on-off switch. Make sure it’s on before you start to play; turn it off when you’re done.

To build a robot, you will need a gray block, a black block, and a clear block. Just snap them together and you’ve built a robot!

your hand and the flashlight dims. Move your hand away and the Flashlight gets brighter.

These cubes are modular which means you can swap any Sense block for any other Sense block. You’ll still have a robot, just a different robot. In the Dimbot we swapped a Distance Sense block for a Brightness Sense block to make a Light-sensitive Dimbot.

Accelerate your learning with a quick and easy getting started video, watch it on YouTube.

https://youtu.be/YPAOCOJibfQ

This guide is also available on the Modular Robotics website!

http://www.modrobotics.com/

cubelets/cubelets-getting-started/

5. Swap Action Blocks

This simple brightness go-bot robot has a Drive Action block (left) that moves the robot when its Brightness Sense block sees light. The gray block on the right is the Battery block.

You can also swap Action blocks. With a Lightsensitive Dimbot now put a Drive Action block in place of the Flashlight Action block. Now your robot has a Brightness Sense and a Drive block (and, of course, a Battery block).

This robot moves when it senses light. In a bright room it’s a fast robot. In a dark room it’s a Slowbot.

Try more swapping.

What if you use a Speaker Action block instead of the Drive Action block? You get a Canarybot.

What about a Distance Sense block instead of a Brightness Sense block? You get a Fraidybot or a Friendlybot depending on the way the wheels are positioned. By turning the Drive Action block so that the robot goes backward instead of forward, you’ll have a Friendlybot or Fraidybot.

6. How Numbers Flow

The arrow shows the flow of a number from the Brightness Sense block to the Flashlight Action block.

Each black Sense block senses some property of its surroundings and turns it into a number. Each Sense block tells its number to all its neighbors. You can see them “talking” as the green lights on each block flicker. (The Bluetooth flashes different colors.)

For example, the Knob Sense block senses how much you rotate its knob. When you turn the knob all the way counterclockwise (left), the Knob Sense block produces a small number. Turn it clockwise, to the right, to produce a big number.

The Brightness Sense block senses how light the room is. In a dark place, the Brightness Sense block produces a small number. In a light place, the Brightness Sense block produces a big number.

Each Action block takes numbers from its neighbors and turns the numbers into an action.

The Flashlight Action block takes a number and lights its lamp. A big number makes the lamp bright. A small number makes the

lamp dim. Think of the number as hopping or flowing from one block to the next. Numbers are flowing through the blocks of the robot from Sense blocks to Action blocks all the time. That’s what makes the robot behave the way it does.

Numbers don’t flow through Sense blocks. Each Sense block produces its own number, so it doesn’t pass numbers from its neighbors.

7. Using the Bar Graph to See the Numbers

You can use the Bar Graph Action block to understand what’s going on inside your robot—to show the numbers flowing from block to block.

Attach the Bar Graph Action block to any block in a robot. The Bar Graph Action block shows how big the number is. If the number is big, all the cells in the bar graph light. If the number is small, only a few light up. If the number is very small (or zero) no cells light at all.

Try it. Build a simple Brightness Gobot with a Brightness Sense block and a Drive Action block. Attach the Bar Graph Action block to one of the blocks. If there’s a lot of light, the Bar Graph Action block will show a full bar (and the Drive Action block will move fast). If there’s not much light, the Bar Graph Action block won’t light much.

You don’t need the Bar Graph Action block to understand what’s going on with this simple robot. But, with bigger and more complicated robots, the Bar Graph Action block can help.

8. Arrangement of Cubelets Makes a Difference

The pictured robots have different versions because you can put the Drive Action block into the robot in different ways. One way, the robot goes straight. The other way, the robot goes around and around--you could call it a Turnabot.

It’s not just which Sensor and Action blocks you choose. It’s also how you position and situate the Cubelets. The same Cubelets arranged in a different physical configuration make different robots.

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Modular Robotics cubelets robot blocks User Manual

Specifications and Main Features

Frequently Asked Questions

User Manual