The Central Illinois Robotics Club was invited to demonstrate at the Illini Boy Scout Jamboree event on September 12th and I wanted to make something special for the scouts to play with. Based upon previous demonstrations our club has done in the past, I knew that a hands-on project would be very popular with visitors and I began brainstorming ideas and decided upon an accelerometer-controlled marble maze.
Accelerometers can be demonstrated in many exciting ways and kids will likely be drawn to a demo considering the similarity to popular applications such as the Nintendo Wii. The goal of this project was to create an exciting game visitors can play while learning about sensors, microcontrollers, and hobby robotics.
Check out the webpage below for a complete description of this project including pictures, useful links, videos, and the Basic Atom Pro code currently being used.
http://sites.google.com/site/teamtobor/marble-maze
Also you can find the most recent video here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kcj9Sdiohog
The marble maze was a big hit at the Boy Scout event and I also demonstrated the maze at the recent iHobby Expo show in Chicago. It has proven to be a very effective tool for getting people excited about robotics technologies and their endless applications.
Dan Toborowski
President
Central Illinois Robotics Club
www.circ.mtco.com
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