I was just thinking about the Irish Rovers song The Marvelous Toy:
Viz.:
. . .and it got me thinking. . . .
What a “marvelous” robotics project that would be!
Surely with even simple controller logic, (like an Arduino or one of the many “feather” boards that Adafruit sells), it should be possible to make “the marvelous toy”.
What a fun song - I’d never heard it before. And I think you’re right - it would be simple enough to build something like that. The Adafruit CRIKIT would be perfect for that - it’s got motor and servo drivers, and you can even program it with python rather than C for those who are so inclined.
As fun as that sounds, I’m trying not to get distracted from figuring out what’s going on with Finmarks navigation. I’ve got some other things going on, so I’ll have little enough time as it is.
The Irish Rover cover of the Tom Paxton song The Marvelous Toy indeed brings memories of Tom Paxton ('62 - I was 10 years of age singing along), The Irish Rovers, Peter Paul and Mary, Chad Mitchell Trio, and even John Denver.
Perhaps Carl needs a command to add “Zip” when it moves, “Bop” when it stops, and “Whrrrr” when it stands still in honor of the great folk singers of my youth.
. . . and I have a micro:bit version of the Crikit laying around somewhere.
What I would like to see is a transparent sphere that would be able to roll in any direction and react to it’s surroundings. Maybe not face recognition or wall following, but the ability to move around, spin in place, bop, whirr, bleep and bloop without damaging itself. Of course, it would be liberally covered in colored LEDs.