Rover - Light Activated

For this guide you'll need a completed Rover Main Body.

You'll also need a flashlight you can shine at the Rover to make it move.

A nice powerful/bright flashlight is preferable, but you can use the "flashlight" feature of a phone in a pinch. You'll just need to get closer.

Our Sensor Showcase covers using the sensors built in to the micro:bit. The light sensor is covered in Step 10.

If you've never used a micro:bit before you'll want to check out this guide: Bit Board V2 Setup and Use

Note: This Simple version of the code is a great starting point for this project, but the Turner version in Step 5 is more fun. This code is easier to understand and the Turner code is a bit more complex.

We're going to load the following code for our Rover Light Detecting Simple program: https://makecode.microbit.org/_Am6D3o5b1...

When you power on the Rover it will run a calibration routine to check the light levels in the room. (We'll cover the calibration in Step 3.)

Once the calibration is done the Rover will sit there waiting for the light levels to go above the threshold that was set in the calibration routine...

When you shine a flashlight on the face of the micro:bit it will detect the higher light level and the Rover will start rolling away from you!

We need to calibrate the light levels in the room before the micro:bit can tell if a light is shining on it.

The light level can be anywhere between 0 and 255. (0 is almost no light and 255 is very bright light.)

Our code takes 10 readings (with a slight pause between each reading) adds them all together and the divides by the number of samples (10 in this case) to get our final value.

Calibration routines often use this sampling technique where a number of values are captured and then the average of them is used.

Once we've calculated our ambient light level we pad the number a bit to prevent false triggering. We used 75 for our pad value in this example but you can experiment with lower (or higher) values.

The calibration runs automatically when you power on the Rover but you can also run it by pressing the A Button on the micro:bit if you need to recalibrate.

Power on the Rover, wait for the calibration to complete, and then shine a flashlight at the micro:bit on the Rover.

The Rover should roll away from the light!

You can make the Rover stop by moving the flashlight away so it is not shining on the micro:bit

Alternately the Rover will stop rolling when it gets too far away and the light level drops due to the further distance of the flashlight.

This Turner version of the code adds a few features, the most important being that the Rover will no longer sit still.

When the Rover does not detect the flashlight it will turn in a circle. You can wait for the Rover to turn a certain amount and then shine the flashlight on it to get it rolling again.

Load the following code for our Rover Light Detecting Turner program: https://makecode.microbit.org/_Dt22XJgFq...

We've added a few neat things to the code.

The Rover may turn clockwise or anti-clockwise when not rolling. There's a function in the code to randomly choose which way to turn.

We've also added a runState variable that allows you to start/stop the Rover from moving by using the B button on the micro:bit to toggle the state. One press starts the Rover, the next press stops it.

Power on the Rover, wait for the calibration to complete, and then shine a flashlight at the micro:bit on the Rover.

The Rover should start spinning around and then roll away from the light when you shine your flashlight on the micro:bit

When you move your flashlight away from the Rover it will stop rolling away and start to spin again.

The code provided (both the Simple and Turner versions) can serve as a starting point for your own ideas about how the Rover can react to light.

You could program a sequence of movements, or with new code even add an accessory (like the Gripper, Lifter, or Sweeper) and then try to control them with a flashlight.