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January 29, 2024July 5, 2024 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 2 Comments

SunFounder GalaxyRVR review – An Arduino programmable Mars Rover-like robot for education

SunFounder sent us a GalaxyRVR 6-wheel robot for review. It looks like NASA’s Mars Rover robots but targets the education market with an Arduino UNO R3 compatible board and an ESP32-CAM board for WiFi connectivity and video capture. The GalaxyRVR robot kit can transmit video signals over WiFi to explore planet Earth with your mobile device or tablet and the camera can be adjusted up and down thanks to a servo motor. The robot gets its power from a solar panel coupled with a battery and features sensors such as obstacle avoidance and ultrasonic modules. NASA’s Mars Rover exploration robots NASA is currently using the Perseverance rover, also known as Percy, as the latest planetary exploration robot to land on Mars. It is designed to explore the Jezero Crater as part of NASA’s Mars 2020 mission. In addition to its scientific instruments, Perseverance also carries Ingenuity, a small experimental Martian […]

January 11, 2024July 5, 2024 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

SunFounder PiCar-X 2.0 review – A Raspberry Pi 4 AI robot car programmable with Blockly or Python

SunFounder PiCar-X 2.0 is an AI-powered self-driving robot car using the Raspberry Pi 3/4 as the main processing board. It is equipped with a camera module that can be moved by a 2-axis servo motor, allowing the camera to pan or tilt, an ultrasonic module for detecting distant objects, and a line detection module. The PiCar-X robot can also perform computer vision tasks such as color detection, face detection, traffic signs detection, automatic obstacle avoidance, and automatic line tracking. The PiCar-X can be programmed with two computer languages: Blockly-based Ezblock Studio drag-and-drop program and Python, and the robot works with OpenCV computer vision library and TensorFlow for AI workloads. Finally, you can also control the robot through the SunFounder controller application on your mobile phone. The company sent us a sample of the Picar-X 2.0 for review, so let’s get started. SunFounder PiCar-X 2.0 robot overview The PiCar-X robot kit […]

December 13, 2023December 12, 2023 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 2 Comments

M5StickC PLUS2 IoT development kit features ESP32-PICO-V3-02 SiP, larger 200 mAh battery

M5Stack M5StickC PLUS2 is a battery-powered ESP32 IoT development kit with a 1.14-inch display, a built-in microphone, a 6-axis gyroscope and accelerometer, a few buttons, a buzzer, a Grove connector and a GPIO header for expansion. It builds upon the M5StickC Plus released in September 2020, but replaced the ESP-PICO-D4 SiP with an ESP32-PICO-V3-02 still based on ESP32 WiSoC but having 8MB SPI flash and 2MB flash and also features a larger 200 mAh battery along with a new CH9102 USB to TTL chip and does without a PMIC. M5StickC PLUS2 key features and specifications: ESP32-PICO-V3-02 SiP – Espressif Systems ESP32-PICO-V3-02 system-in-package with ESP32 dual-core WiFI and Bluetooth IoT processor @ up to 240 MHz, 8MB SPI flash, 2MB PSRAM Display – 1.14-inch Color TFT LCD with 135×240 resolution (ST7789v2 driver) Audio – SPM1423 microphone, buzzer USB – 1x USB-C port for power and programming using CH9102 USB to TTL chip […]

December 7, 2023December 7, 2023 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 3 Comments

M5Stack releases local server implementations of UIFlow visual programming Web IDE

Visual programming is now a very popular method to teach programming to kids and M5Stack relies on UIFlow for their ESP32-based IoT development kit. Like most other companies, M5Stack provides either a Web IDE accessible from their server or a desktop program available for Windows, MacOS, or Linux, but the company has now released a local server implementation that allows users to run a Web IDE instance in their local network. The local server is available for Windows 11 x64, MacOS, Ubuntu 22.04, and Linux Arm (e.g. Raspberry Pi), so I downloaded the Ubuntu version to give it a try on my laptop. Somehow the Ubuntu release is full of Windows DLLs, but let’s ignore that for now, and the README.txt tells us to install one dependency and run the program as follows:

apt install ttf-mscorefonts-installer
./UIFlow.Server.Desktop

1 2	apt install ttf-mscorefonts-installer ./UIFlow.Server.Desktop

A window pops up letting us start or stop the server. It can be accessed with […]

November 30, 2023November 30, 2023 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 2 Comments

myAGV 2023 four-wheel mobile robot ships with Raspberry Pi 4 or Jetson Nano

four wheel automous guided vehicle raspberry pi 4

Elephant Robotics myAGV 2023 is a 4-wheel mobile robot available with either Raspberry Pi 4 Model B SBC or NVIDIA Jetson Nano B01 developer kit, and it supports five different types of robotic arms to cater to various use cases. Compared to the previous generation myAGV robot, the 2023 model is fitted with high-performance planetary brushless DC motors, supports vacuum placement control, can take a backup battery, handles large payloads up to 5 kg, and integrates customizable LED lighting at the rear. myAGV 2023 specifications: Control board Pi model – Raspberry Pi 4B with 2GB RAM Jetson Nano model – NVIDIA Jetson Nano B01 with 4GB RAM Wheels – 4x Mecanuum wheels Motor – Planetary brushless DC motor Maximum linear speed – 0.9m/s Maximum Payload – 5 kg Video Output Pi model – 2x micro HDMI ports Jetson Nano model – HDMI and DisplayPort video outputs Camera Pi model – […]

November 4, 2023November 4, 2023 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

Makeblock mBot Neo robot review with Smart World Add-on Pack

MakeBlock mBot Neo, also known as mBot2, is an educational robot that builds upon the previous generation mBot1 robot, and the company has sent us a review sample, following our earlier review of the Ultimate 2.0 10-in-1 educational robot kit, along with the Smart World Add-on Pack. The mBot Neo features a new ESP32-based CyberPi control board with WiFi connectivity for IoT and AI support. The robot is also equipped with a 2nd generation Ultrasonic sensor with improved object detection accuracy and status indicator, a built-in 4-ch RGB line sensor that can detect colors, as well as a new drive motor that comes with an encoder for more precise motion control. The mBot Neo robot kit is expandable with metal parts from other Makeblock models, mBuild modules and various electronic modules can be added making it also possible to build custom robots with third-party structural parts. The mBot Neo robot […]

September 17, 2023September 17, 2023 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 3 Comments

Review of CM4 XGO Lite – A Raspberry Pi CM4 based smart robot dog with a robotic arm

The CM4 XGO Lite is a smart robot dog based on Raspberry Pi CM4 system-on-module and designed to learn to program using Blockly, Python, and ROS. This four-legged robot also happens to feature a 3-joint robot arm and a robot gripper installed on the back that can pick up light objects. The Raspberry Pi CM4 module drives the LCD screen and camera and performs AI and computer vision processing, while each joint is controlled with a servo motor, and a 6-axis tilt sensor ensures stable walking and movement. We’ve already discussed the capabilities of the CM4 XGO Lite, aka XGO Lite 2, when it was announced earlier this year, so we’re not going to go into details here, but some of the highlights include support for faster AI edge computing applications such as face detection and object classification, omnidirectional movement, six-dimensional posture control, posture stability, and multiple motion gaits. Robot […]

August 7, 2023July 5, 2024 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 5 Comments

SunFounder Zeus Car Kit review – A fun toy and Arduino learning tool

SunFounder Zeus Car Kit is an Arduino UNO and ESP32 Cam-based educational kit for children (and adults) that can be used to learn more about electronics, robotics, and programming. It’s a car comprised of four 6cm Mecanum wheels for omnidirectional motion and various sensors that can be controlled with an Android app enabling first-person view (FPV) thanks to the built-in camera. The company sent us a Zeus Car Kit for review and evaluation, and after assembly, we’ll use it in “Play Mode”, or in other words a toy that basically works out of the box, before checking out the “Programing Mode” and related Arduino tutorials to evaluate it’s educational potential. Zeus Car Kit Unboxing The kit comes in a nice retail package which highlights some of the capacities of the kit: FPV, Omnidrive, AI vision, compass, IR control, APP control, and RGB lights. The package itself contains four more boxes […]