Continuing our game theme we added Pong today, but with a difference. You use the FlowPaw bard as the games controller, by tilting the board using the accelerometer Claw you can control the Pong bat. There is even a two player mode using two FlowPaws..
Pong running in app. mode.
You also get full access to the FlowStone code running in real-time so you can modify the game, change the graphics etc.
Here’s the video:
This is the short version for the more complete longer version go to < here >
We are adding lots of example files into the FlowPaw/FlowStone install to get you going straight out of the box, today’s addition is Space Invaders!
Using the Accelerometer Claw on the FlowPaw board to control your ship left and right (by tilting the board) and use the buttons for fire etc. Also the FlowPaw buzzer plays the game sounds.
As this is in FlowStone the code is accessible so you can change the graphics and tweak the code as much as you like! Or just enjoy playing!
Here’s the Video:
We just received the first batch of the full production boards this week!
These are the Rev 1.01 PCB’s with the slightly modified expansion connector:
We made these with a 10 way header so it works with standard ribbon cables and also added a 5V & GND header so that you can power the board from an external 5V source or use the 5V for external sensors if necessary.
Here’s the new packaging for the FlowPaw that arrived today..
The cool thing, that you can’t see on the photo above, is the subtle embossing on the box:
also on the bottom:
cool..
It’s a sign…
Here we have programmed a Raspberry Pi board using Python to make is act as a WiFi server for the FlowPaw board (i.e. to make it wireless). This means that you can write your own program to control the FlowPaw using FlowStone on the PC (or even your browser using HTTP) live whilst having wireless control using your standard home network!
No more downloading code into a chip (Aka Lego Mindstorms) or struggling programming the Raspberry Pi, do it live on screen in FlowStone and save time!
All you need is a Raspberry Pi with a WiFi dongle, setup to run our pre-made Python script which runs each time you boot it. So you don’t even need to connect a keyboard, screen or mouse to your Pi. The Pi then connects to the FlowPaw board via USB and you’re off.
In this case we are using an Xbox games controller connected to the PC in FlowStone to drive the rover around. Add a few proximity sensors and you will have an autonomous rover with the code running via telemetry on the PC – how cool is that!
Whist the FlowPaw is mainly designed to work with the FlowStone STEM software making programming really quick and easy, for those of you out there that would like to use Python on the Raspberry Pi this is also possible too!
Here is our first working test of the Rpi sending data to the FlowPaw board as a stand alone system.
With just a little more Python we have the Buzzer Claw and Scrolling Text working on the FlowPaw board with Rpi:
Ben testing the new FlowPaw board & FlowStone STEM:
We gave Ben (Age 12) a FlowPaw and FlowStone STEM to play with, after playing with the demo projects he was off creating within an hour..
Today we tested several rover chassis for the FlowPaw rover kit:
See how we got on… Continue reading