We've just backed the Mirobot! Because it's rather good.
Mirobot is a small, WiFi robotics kit that children can build themselves and then use to learn about technology, engineering and programming. It’s creator Ben Pirt says that fun to build and easy to start programming it to draw shapes. It’s the building aspect of the robot that I like, and the fact that it’s all open - physically in that it has no shell and metaphorically as Ben has already Open Sourced the design. This folks is how to do Open Hardware! You publish! This is one of the reasons I’ve backed the kickstarter, the board is out there being tested as is the chassis. I’m pretty sure I’m going to get something that will work. The files are all on Github:
It looks rather lovely when together too. A lot of work has gone into the aesthetic of the Mirobot, but that really is the tip of the ice berg.
Take a look at the Mirobot.io website and you’ll see a huge amount of work has gone into this project, and it’s all been shared. There are a number of little innovations which really impress me, like the optimisation of the PCB for soldering by beginners.
This shows staggered pins on this header, which means the header won’t flop about as you try to solder it. It’s a simple but time consuming tweak that will make all the difference to someone soldering their first project.
There’s also a whole software aspect of the project that I’ve glossed over a bit as I assume I can code, I can’t so this will be great when I actually run the Mirobot with my kids.
As the title said we’ve backed the Mirobot and that’s the “Royal we” as phenoptix is just me at the moment. If you back it under my recommendation I’m pretty sure you’ll be pleased with what you receive, but let it still be your choice! The kickstarter can be found here