STEAM Train STEAMbot V1.3 User manual

STEAMbot V1.3 User Guide, Rev 2

2018 © Copyright The STEAM Train 1

STEAMbot V1.3 User Guide

Introduction

Welcome to the world of STEAMbot robots! We at The STEAM Train want to thank you for getting a

STEAMbot robot kit. We believe that any child that wants a robot should be able to afford one. This

kit will help you learn more about Science, Technology, Engineering, Art and Math (STEAM). We

hope you will have lots of fun putting your robot together and learning how to program it. Your

efforts will be rewarded and give you opportunities for a better future.

This guide has the following chapters:

1. Assembly of Your STEAMbot –covers how to assemble your STEAMbot robot.

2. STEAMbot Controller –provides a description of the STEAMbot Controller, the heart of you

robot.

3. Software Installation –tells you how to install the required software so you can program your

STEAMbot robot.

Warning

Although the STEAMbot has been carefully designed and manufactured, the STEAMbot has fragile

components. Dropping it or pushing on the Ultrasonic Sensor Bracket may cause it to crack or break.

In addition, the header pins of the STEAMbot Controller can pierce your skin if you are not careful.

The pins are also easy to bend. So please handle your STEAMbot with care.

Glossary

The following terms are used in this document.

STEAMbot V1.3 User Guide, Rev 2

2018 © Copyright The STEAM Train 2

Term

Meaning

BLE

Bluetooth Low Energy or Bluetooth 4.0

PCB

Printed Circuit Board

USS

Ultrasonic Sensor

Assembly of Your STEAMbot

Parts

Figure 1 shows you all the parts that should be in your kit. If any part is missing, please email us at

support@thesteamtrain.cc.

Figure 1, STEAMbot Kit Parts

The following table has the parts and quantities.

Part

Quantity

STEAMbot Top Plate

STEAMbot Bottom Plate

STEAMbot Controller

DC Motor and Wheel

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Part

Quantity

Battery Holder

Ball Caster

Phillips Screwdriver

#4 1 inch screw

#4 3/8 inch screw

6 (or 8)

Ultrasonic Sensor and Wire

Ultrasonic Sensor Bracket

USB Cable

Note 1: the wire on the USS

Note 2: the USS Bracket shown is one of several that are available. When you placed the order for

your STEAMbot, you had the option to pick two different brackets.

Parts Not Included

The following parts are needed but not supplied in the kit:

•Four AA batteries –please read the section on batteries on page 11.

•A smart phone with Bluetooth LE support. This is optional if you want to remotely control

your STEAMbot.

•A small flat screwdriver. In the near future this screwdriver will not be required.

•A Windows or MacOS computer. Needed only if you want to program the STEAMbot using

either the Arduino IDE or Google’s Blockly.

Assembly Steps

It is highly recommended that you read through all the steps below and then perform the following

steps to assemble your STEAMbot:

1. If the wheels are attached to the motors, remove the wheels by pulling them from the motor. The

wheels fit tightly so be careful when pulling on the wheel to not break the axel.

2. Place the bottom plate flat on a table along with both motors and the two 1” screws, as shown in

Figure 2.

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2018 © Copyright The STEAM Train 4

Figure 2, Bottom Plate with Motors

3. Use a 1” screw to attach each motor to the bottom plate. Be careful not to strip the plastic as you

tighten.

4. Place the top plate over the bottom. Screw the top plate to the bottom plate using four 3/8”

screws as shown in the following figure.

Figure 3, Top Plate

5. Flip the robot. Using two 3/8” screws, attach the roller ball to the bottom plate as shown in the

following figure.

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2018 © Copyright The STEAM Train 5

6. Take the wheels and attach them to the motors.

7. Flip the robot over so it is resting on the wheels and roller ball as shown in the following figure.

Figure 4, Chassis with Wheels

8. Add 4 AA batteries to the battery holder.

9. Place the battery holder on the top plate as shown in the following figure.

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2018 © Copyright The STEAM Train 6

Figure 5, Battery Holder

10. Take the STEAMbot Controller and place it on the posts of the top plate. Note that some version

may have two posts and two screw holes. If you have the screw holes, screw in the last two 3/8”

screws to hold the STEAMbot Controller in place.

11. Loosen the screws of the blue battery terminal, labeled “+BATT-”with the small flat screwdriver.

12. Insert the red wire from the battery holder to the + battery terminal and tighten the screw.

13. Insert the black wire from the battery holder to the - battery terminal and tighten the screw.

14. Push the wire from the left motor onto the JST connector labeled “MTRA”.

15. Push the wire from the right motor onto the JST connector labeled “MTRB”.

16. Make sure the wiring is as shown in the following figure.

Figure 6, STEAMbot Controller

17. Pick an ultrasonic sensor bracket. As stated above, you received at least two different brackets

when your STEAMbot was ordered.

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2018 © Copyright The STEAM Train 7

18. Take the ultrasonic sensor (with the attached four conductor wire), align it with the holes on the

ultrasonic sensor bracket and press fit the sensor into the bracket. The wire goes to the top.

19. Take the other end of the wire from the ultrasonic sensor and plug each conductor into the pins

labeled “P5”. Note that the colors of the four-conductor wire differ between kits. The important

thing to remember is to keep them in the same order on the sensor as on the pins of P5. Your

robot should look similar to the following figure.

20. Push the power switch to the ON position (labeled on the PCB). A red LED near the speaker on

the STEAMbot controller will turn red. The LED near the RESET button will blink green for

about 1 second. You will hear a beep; the LED will turn several colors and then stay blue.

21. Congratulations, your STEAMbot is ready to be controlled via a smart phone (iPhone or Android)

or to be programmed by you! If you don’t have a smart phone, see below for the different modes.

Now go have some fun with your STEAMbot robot!

Where Is the Front of The STEAMbot?

If you correctly followed the assembly steps above, the front of your STEAMbot is where the is

where the ball caster is. However, if you wish to flip this configuration so that the ball caster is the

rear, just swap to which motor terminal blocks the wires from the motors are connected, i.e. push the

wire from the left motor onto the JST connector labeled “MTRB” and push the wire from the right

motor onto the JST connector labeled “MTRA”.

Batteries

The STEAMbot robot has been tested with alkaline batteries and with Ni-Zn rechargeable batteries.

The STEAMbot does NOT support Ni-Cd or Ni-MH rechargeable batteries. These batteries only

provide 1.2 volts each as compared to the 1.5 volts produced by alkaline batteries or the 1.6 volts

provided by Ni-Zn batteries. Four Ni-Cd or Ni-MH provide only 4.8 volts which is not enough to

reliably power the STEAMbot.

Figure 7, Completed STEAMbot

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2018 © Copyright The STEAM Train 8

An alternative to AA batteries is to use a USB Power Bank that are commonly available. These are

rechargeable and can be used multiple times. The power bank comes with a USB cable that is

connected to the USB connector on the STEAMbot Controller. The downside to using a power bank

is that the power switch is bypassed. To turn off your STEAMbot, remove the USB cable.

Removing or Adding Batteries

To remove or add batteries from the battery holder, carefully remove the STEAMbot Controller from

the mounting posts. It’s best to use a thumb and push up with the thumbnail. If the STEAMbot

Controller was held in place with screws, first remove the screws and then push up the STEAMbot

Controller from the two posts using your thumbs.

Modes

The default program that comes with the STEAMbot robot provides the following two modes:

1. Bluetooth mode –in this mode, the STEAMbot is controlled by a smartphone using the built-

in Bluetooth LE module. When first powered on or after a reset, this is the mode the

STEAMbot is in.

2. Cat mode –in this mode, the STEAMbot acts similar to a cat. Put an object in front of the

STEAMbot (your hand, your shoe, a broom or something similar). At a certain distance, the

STEAMbot will follow the object. However, if the STEAMbot gets too close to the object, it

will back away from the object.

To change modes, push both the RUN and the STOP button. You will hear a single beep when

transitioning from Cat mode to Bluetooth mode. You will hear a beep and then a higher pitched beep

when transitioning from Bluetooth mode to Cat mode.

Programming Your STEAMbot

Google’s Blockly

The easiest way to program your STEAMbot is with Google’s Blockly. Blockly is a “block

programming” language, very similar to MIT’s Scratch. To you program with Blockly, you must have

one of the following setups:

•A ChromeBook with BLE support

•A Macintosh (Mac) computer with BLE support and running Google’s Chrome web browser

Using one of the setups above, start your Chrome browser and go to https://thesteamtrain.cc/sbp.

When the page loads, along the top you will see a “Connect to” button next to a shaded “STEAMbot-”

label and then a greyed out “ID” field. In this field, enter the alphanumeric information written on

the STEAMbot Controller under “STEAMbot”. Turn on your STEAMbot and click the “Connect to”

button.

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See the highlighted figure below.

Figure 8, STEAMbot ID

A Blockly Programming Guide will be available soon.

Software Installation for Arduino IDE

You can program your STEAMbot with the Arduino Integrated Development Environment (IDE) and

some additional software and libraries. You must know C/C++ in order to program your STEAMbot.

In the near future, you will be able to program your STEAMbot with a drag-and-drop programming

environment such as Scratch or other similar environment.

Please follow the following steps to install all the required software:

1. On Windows, install the software from the Microsoft Store. On a Mac, download the Arduino

IDE from https://www.arduino.cc/en/Main/Software. Refer to the

https://www.arduino.cc/en/Guide/HomePage for the instructions on how to install the software.

2. Start the Arduino IDE. Open up the Preferences dialog. On Windows it’s under File →

Preferences.

3. In the text field for Additional Boards Manager URLs enter

“http://dan.drown.org/stm32duino/package_STM32duino_index.json”. Click the OK button.

4. Click on Tools →Board →Boards Manager. When the Board Manager dialog box appears, enter

“maple” into the “Filter your search...” text box.

5. Select the “STM32Fxx/GD32F1xx boards by stm32duino” option and click “Install”.

6. The installation process may take several minutes. When completed, click “Close”.

STEAMbot V1.3 User Guide, Rev 2

7. Click on Sketch →Include Library →Manage Libraries...

8. When the Library Manager dialog appears, enter "steambot" into the "Filter your search..." text

field. Select the STEAMbot library and click install. Note that the version may be a later version.

It will take a few seconds to install the library and you should see the following.

9. Click the Close button (see figure below).

10. Click on Tools →Board: and select "Maple Mini".

11. Click on Tools →Bootloader Version and select "Bootloader 2.0 (20k RAM, 120k Flash)".

12. On Windows, click on Tools →Port and select the COM port which has "(Maple Mini)" after it.

13. You can now look at the different examples we provide by selecting File →Examples →

STEAMbot, including the DefaultSTEAMbot example which is the default program running

when you first get your STEAMbot and power it up.

14. You are now ready to create your very own programs your STEAMbot to do other things! And

please share them on our web site.

STEAMbot Controller

The STEAMbot is controlled by a controller board that provides all the required functions to control

the robot but also allows you to expand your robot by adding additional sensor and/or actuators. It

can easily be programmed by the Arduino IDE (see the next chapter). It has a 32-bit

STM32F103CBT6 ARM microcontroller with 128 KB FLASH memory (to store your programs), 20

KB of RAM (used while running your program to store data that changes) and 17 general purpose

Figure 9, Arduino Library Manager

Table of contents

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