Resources

Kitronik will be at the 5th Annual Derby Mini Maker Faire this Saturday the 22nd October between 10am - 4pm at the Derby Silk Mill, why not pop down and say hi! We'll have the 1,000 micro:bit display along with an assortment of other cool things to show you. See you there!

This resource consists of a selection of links to the additional resources that we have created to accompany each of the experiments. Each experiment has a walk-through video that also contains hints and tips designed to help you complete the experiment and to understand how the circuits work, we have also included links to additional code examples.

This resource has been produced to provide a great way for you to create cases for our very popular MP3 Mono Amplifier V2.0 Kit and our High Power Stereo Amplifier Kit.

We show you how we made a custom light rig for time-lapse 3D print videos to ensure consistent results for each print. This is the conclusion of our short series of articles on creating time-lapse videos of 3D prints.

Continuing our short series on how to create time-lapse 3D print videos, this time we are going to cover how to use Robox's Go Pro Trigger function to trigger a DSLR Camera and make a time-lapse video.

Now available to order at Kitronik are three new lines that will help you bring your design and technology project ideas and lessons to life. As Design and Technology is a large and varied subject we are always on the lookout for new lines that will help teachers deliver the wide ranging syllabus, be that materials, components or new electronics kits.

Team BBC micro:bit has teamed up with the health research charity the Wellcome Trust on their latest project, The Crunch. They want to hear all about how we eat, so that they can start talking about how food has the power to change our bodies and our whole environment. There will also be a BBC micro:bit firmware update that will give the BBC micro:bit the extra functionality that it will need.

As has been highlighted in the most recent BBC micro:bit newsletter, we have just launched a new and improved version of our very popular Motor Driver Board for the BBC micro:bit, The Motor Driver Board V2.

We're always looking for interesting ways to show off our kits, and recently we got hold of a Go Pro to take some buggies eye footage (more on that soon). Whilst we were all set up we thought we'd show you how easy it is to make a time-lapse video of a 3D print on the Robox RBX-01 Printer using a Go Pro.

Martin Woolley explains how he wrote the Robot Buggy code using the Microsoft PXT Editor for the BBC micro:bit. Includes a link to the completed code. Martin not only wrote the code that we use for the remote controlled buggies, he also designed the Bluetooth profile for the BBC micro:bit and wrote and released the micro:bit Blue App, which we used to control the buggys.

The last part of our physical design challenge was to design a flag for a capture the flag style game. As with most of the design challenges that this project presented, we had some ideas and discarded the difficult and impractical until we were left with a simple but effective solution.

We looked at a few different ways of achieving our Robot Wars inspired buggy but quickly settled on keeping the buggy completely intact and cutting a top plate from a perspex sheet. We wanted it to be functional, aesthetically pleasing and also easy to produce. We had six buggies to design and build and only a few days to get them done.

The line following buggy for the BBC micro:bit is a great kit for students to build as it combines several elements of design and technology; electronics, mechanical assembly and coding and it is this buggy that the Robot Buggies are built upon. The kit has relatively few parts and is simple to build, making it a suitable option as a classroom activity.

Whilst many of our customers enjoy a well earned holiday during August, we're busy putting the final touches to some exciting new kits, and bringing you a couple of additions to our materials section.

Geoff Hampson, one of our company directors, was charged with designing and building something iconic from the epic '80s. There are many things that spring to mind when you think about the '80s but if you were at school during this period, as I was, then you undoubtedly have a lot of memories of the Rubix cube craze. Challenge accepted!

MP Michelle Donelan has secured the support of almost 90 MP's for a proposed change to EBacc that would allow schools to class design and technology as a science and offer it as a choice to students.

Robox Update Automaker To V2.01.02 . As CEL Robox have moved deeper into dual material printing, recent updates to their Automaker software have been geared towards facilitating this. There have been a number of multi-material related new features and a few days ago they updated Automaker to V2.01.02. This added another new feature for removing the gap between the support material and your part, when using a dual material head.

I never expected to be thinking about work last weekend when I was at the East Midlands Flower Show, but when I saw the fantastic creations of Burned by Design and went over to have a closer look. It turned out that the owner, Alex, is a Design and Technology teacher.

The summer holidays are almost upon us and D&T Department stocks may be beginning to dwindle, so why not replenish D&T stocks before the summer to ensure the new school year gets off to a flying start.

This week and next, armed with BBC micro:bits and accessories, Kitronik are breaking free from the office and attending fun education based events that are aimed at showing young people and educators that there is a world of opportunity out there for people with the right skills.