{"id":11860,"date":"2015-01-27T15:10:36","date_gmt":"2015-01-27T15:10:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.recantha.co.uk\/blog\/?p=11860"},"modified":"2015-01-27T15:10:36","modified_gmt":"2015-01-27T15:10:36","slug":"4tronix-agobo-review-a-cheap-hackable-robotics-kit-for-the-raspberry-pi","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.recantha.co.uk\/blog\/?p=11860","title":{"rendered":"4tronix Agobo review – a cheap, hackable robotics kit for the Raspberry Pi"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Gareth from 4tronix was kind enough to send me one of these to review and say what I like about it.<\/em><\/p>\n

Introduction<\/h2>\n

The 4tronix Agobo<\/a> is a robotics kit for the Raspberry Pi model A+. It comes as a kit which requires assembling, but not soldering (although you\u00a0can<\/em> do some).\u00a0You can see the contents in the picture below:\u00a0the main board (with attached motors), 2 wheels, a battery pack and cable, a castor kit and various fixings. The low-powered model A+ is ideal for robotics and this kit takes advantage of its tiny size – the whole thing when assembled is itself very small and it’s just the sort of kit to get children excited about electronics and programming.<\/p>\n

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The main board itself (shown below in close-up) has attached infra-red line sensors on the underside, the previously mentioned motors, plus headers for serial, I2C and also a header at the front of the board specifically designed for an ultrasonic distance sensor. There are also two (very bright) white\u00a0LEDs which are controllable in software, plus a “mode” button. All this connectivity on the board is fantastic as it saves you having wires all over the place. There is also a break-out for the entire GPIO. This comes in useful with the optional prototyping plate that you can buy as it plugs directly into that (with some soldering needed). There are some small prototyping areas in the middle of the board with GND, 3v3 and 5V rails. At the rear is the microUSB power port which means you are delivering 5V directly to the board as well as to the Pi. The circuit board is of very high quality and the silk-screening is superb, which means everything is clearly labelled.<\/p>\n

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Overall, I really must commend Gareth on his design – he’s clearly taken a lot of time and thought over it.<\/p>\n

Assembly<\/h2>\n

I chose to assemble the kit with the\u00a0optional prototyping board, the PlusPlate. This board fits over the top of the rest of the kit and allows you to wire on additional components. There are some fiddly moments involved in putting it together.\u00a0The ball castor assembly requires you to hold it together while you screw it to the board. This can result in ball bearings and screws going all over the place and there’s definitely a knack to doing it. I’ve since spoken to Gareth about it and, until they figure out a better way, they are going to glue the assembly together which should make it a lot easier.<\/p>\n

The assembly instructions<\/a> are excellent – perhaps for the more difficult builds (those including the prototyping plate) there could be some extra photographs to help you work out which screw\/fixing goes where, but to be honest that’s half the fun and challenge of\u00a0putting it together. I only swore a few times \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n

The soldering that I had to do (which is only necessary when dealing with the PlusPlate) was simple enough – two male 40-pin headers and one female 40-pin header is all that’s needed.<\/p>\n

Here is the robot all assembled (without the tubular battery pack) so you can see what you end up with.\u00a0From this picture you can clearly see the Neopixel attached to the prototyping board, which is there for no other reason than added blinkiness, as far as I can tell! The PlusPlate\u00a0is, again, of very high quality and is clearly labelled with power and ground rails.<\/p>\n

\"B8TecBrIgAAGs-Q\"<\/a><\/p>\n

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The nice thing about using the PlusPlate with the kit is that it means the HDMI port is available for use. This isn’t the case when the PlusPlate isn’t used as the battery holder obscures the port. This could be a little annoying if you’re trying to program the A+ and you want to be able to use a screen as it more or less forces you to use\u00a0a wireless dongle or serial cable to do so, or do as I did and keep swapping the SD card between the A+ and a B+ that is wired to the screen\/keyboard. The build does leave the USB port free so it means you can plug in a wifi dongle or keyboard. I would recommend building it with the PlusPlate\u00a0– you can\u00a0just\u00a0<\/em>about use the HDMI port and still power up the Agobo (the socket is almost obscured by the HDMI cable I was using).<\/div>\n

Software<\/h2>\n
The website for Agobo<\/a> contains a download link for some demo software<\/a> that will show you how to program your\u00a0robot. The demo software package contains the following:<\/div>\n