​All in all, February was a good month for our little pal Hal. It seems after growing out of his disruptive and... slightly angsty teenage years of January. (Everyone knows one human month equals 2 robot years... source not cited) Hal decided to buckle down and work himself towards a better future. I mean if he is planning to spend half a robot year abroad, he’s going to have to show us he means business.
And that all starts with not being fussy about hooking up his new attachments, or what I like to call his pretty little bling bling. Alright let us start with bling bling number 1.
The ultrasonic sensor (HC-SR04), fairly stock standard the people say, and they are fairly right. When it came to installing the necessary packages/libraries, we ran into very few issues. And coming from self-proclaimed “Personality Hire”, Erin, we have our python code for finding pulse duration through our GPIO pins and getting our distance through an ever-lovely Maths, as they say across the pond, equation. With this code the Escape Route could just be all set, but of course, a few tweaks are needed. But let’s keep those to ourselves for now, we don’t want to spoil the whole show... or maybe just the show isn’t quite ready, who's to say.
Pushing on to bling bling number 2, appropriately named the Pixy2 camera. Now Pixy2 showed us that Hal still has some of his rebellious tendencies left inside, I mean we can’t take away all his personality. And studies do show that robots indeed do thrive when given the space to find a sense of individuality (source unknown). Even with that said, Hal has often left me questioning if I have the patience for parenthood... but I digress, this is not the time for my existential thoughts on parenting.
The main choice with the Pixy2 was, do we want to try to implement the .cpp files (C++ code), which to us seemed to have the most documentation on the web, or to base our code around Pixy2’s built in python demos. We choose the latter. Anytime you have a choice between simplicity or complexity, in the case of automation, go with neither. Choose consistency.
 And with that we have a robot entering young adulthood, equipped with an ultrasonic sensor and camera ready to head into the world. We just got to keep him in spaces with plenty of walls and clearly marked directions (Preferably lines, which are white, and ideally on a floor with no gaps...)
Till next time,
-Taken from the thoughts of a Burqueño

And of course, our incredible sponsors!

Thanks to Kelly Jo's for hosting, and our fearless leader Kerry for setting up! Our first paint night was a success! $209 raised and personalized bots captured forever!

Sponsored by: PADT and ECOS

(Asia is 5 feet tall)

Sponsored by: ECOS & PADT