As part of our English and Electronics course (英語で電気工作教室) I've had great fun building these mini-robots using only an Arduino Uno, Sparkfun's Pan/Tilt Bracket and some connecting wires.

  While the bracket build can be little complicated for young students, there is a real sense of acheivement once completed. Hooking the bracket up to the Arduino is as simple as making sure the servos have got power and then connecting the control wires to the correct ports on the Arduino.A few cable ties help keep everything tidy! The pan/tilt bracket really needs to be mounted on something or it will just keep falling over. In this case I used a piece of wood to mount both the pan/tilt bracket and the Arduino Uno.

  On the software side, the stuff that controls how the robot moves, we would usually use the mBlock application. This is a block based coding system which is easy for young minds (and old!) to understand. Although in this video, which is intended as a demonstration, I used the Arduino Servo Library and modified the basic sweep program.

  The slowly pulsating LED lights are not controlled by the Arduino, they have their own 'chip' and were salvaged from a children's toy. As this is intended to be used as a demonstartion I thought the lights added a bit more excitement!