Adafruit Weekly Editorial Round-Up: May 21 – May 27, 2018
ADAFRUIT WEEKLY ROUND-UP
We’ve got so much happening here at Adafruit that it’s not always easy to keep up! Don’t worry – we can help with that! Each week we’ll be posting a handy round-up of what we’ve been up to, ranging from learn guides to blog articles, videos, and more.
R.O.B. relies on a series of precise flashes from a CRT analog television to receive commands via a sensor in the robot’s head. It had no connection to the NES itself.
Using an NES on a modern LCD TV does not allow R.O.B. to work as the images are not output in the same way analog signals were used. R.O.B. uses a detection chip in his head which relied on specific flash timing inherent in analog TV (in the US, NTSC signals).
Over the years, people have tried to recreate the R.O.B. controls without success. Some success has been achieved by Makers by hacking the motor control board in R.O.B.’s base (which will be shown later in this article).
Here at Adafruit, we took this as a challenge. With the aid of some NES emulation detective work on the AtariAge forums along with Ladyada’s NTSC-foo, we have recreated the light control sequence R.O.B. uses to move.
This tutorial will assist you in taking your dusty R.O.B. and making him a useful part of your life. Read more!
Adafruit has had paid day off for voting for our team for years, if you need help getting that going for your organization, let us know – we can share how and why we did this as well as the good results. Here are some resources for voting by mail, voting in person, and some NY resources for our NY based teams as well. If there are additional resources to add, please let us know – adafruit.com/vote
Stop breadboarding and soldering – start making immediately! Adafruit’s Circuit Playground is jam-packed with LEDs, sensors, buttons, alligator clip pads and more. Build projects with Circuit Playground in a few minutes with the drag-and-drop MakeCode programming site, learn computer science using the CS Discoveries class on code.org, jump into CircuitPython to learn Python and hardware together, TinyGO, or even use the Arduino IDE. Circuit Playground Express is the newest and best Circuit Playground board, with support for CircuitPython, MakeCode, and Arduino. It has a powerful processor, 10 NeoPixels, mini speaker, InfraRed receive and transmit, two buttons, a switch, 14 alligator clip pads, and lots of sensors: capacitive touch, IR proximity, temperature, light, motion and sound. A whole wide world of electronics and coding is waiting for you, and it fits in the palm of your hand.
Have an amazing project to share? The Electronics Show and Tell is every Wednesday at 7pm ET! To join, head over to YouTube and check out the show’s live chat – we’ll post the link there.
