A Busy Week
12 October 2018 | Kevin McAleer
Its been a busy week this week:
- I’ve created the new www.smarsfan.com website
- Created a python library to provide some basic functionality to make programming a SMARS easier
- Finished printing a quad SMARS and started printing a standard SMARS robot.
- Created a video about how I got Scratch to work with Python and the Quad SMARS.
- Interviewed the creator of SMARS - Kevin Thomas. He’s a great guy and an inspiration to all us makers.
- Created a Slack team - that you can join - smarslab.slack.com
- Created a Trello board to keep track of website developments, and software developments.
- Shared the code library on Github - https://www.github.com/kevinmcaleer/smars
Current Development
I’m currently printing a standard, caterpillar tracked SMARS, I started with the walking Quad SMARS and I’m happy with how this turned out. I’m powering the Quad with a Raspberry Pi Zero WH, however my 3d printer isn’t great at printing really small parts so the raspberry pi holder tray doesn’t work great for me - it always splits when I insert the pi. I’m going to design my own tray for the Pi to sit in, and then provide power via the rechargeable 18650s.
Next Steps
I’m going to continue developing the code library, focusing more on the Arduino code for both the Quad and standard SMARS robots. I’m also thinking of creating some code for the Microbit, as these are great and I have a couple lying about.