Servo - August 2008

provide even younger children and their teachers with curricular-relevant, easy-to-implement educational materials to spark children’s interest in all manner of subjects.”

LEGO Education WeDo encourages teachers to issue curriculum-based challenges for students to solve. Working in teams, children invent their own solution by building a LEGO model and programming it to perform a certain task. Cause and effect learning is enhanced by the models remaining tethered to a computer; similar to scientists in working labs, children can test and adjust their programming in real time. After reflecting on what did and did not work, students can consult with peers, adapt programming, adjust models, or begin again. Newly-designed software developed by National Instruments makes programming easy and intuitive and students quickly learn that they can solve real-world challenges by tinkering with building and programming.

Developed to cover a broad range of curriculum areas, WeDo sample topics include Language and Literacy: narrative and journalistic writing, storytelling, interviewing and interpreting; Mathematics: measuring time and distance, adding, multiplying, estimating, using variables; Science: transmission of motion, working with simple machines, gears, levers and pulleys; Technology: programming, using software media and creating a working model.

The complete LEGO WeDo package includes:

• 158 brightly colored LEGO elements, including gears and levers

• One LEGO USB hub connects directly to a Mac/PC laptop, desktop, OLPC XO, or Intel Classmate computer to allow control of hardware input (tilt and motion sensors) and output (motor), thereby bringing models to life

• One motor, one motion sensor, and one tilt sensor

• Drag-and-drop, icon-based software that provides an intuitive and easy-to-use programming environment suitable for beginners and experienced users alike

• CD-Rom provides up to 24 hours of instruction. Teacher notes and glossary are also included

For further information, please contact:

The LEGO Group

Website: www.LEGO.com

MOTOR CONTROLLER

New Powerful, Versatile, and Easy-to-Use Motor Controller

The CS110100 from A-WIT Technologies is a multi-functional, high-current two-axis motor driver with motion control. It features on-board, over-current protection and over-temperature protection. Maximum DC current per motor channel is 10A. For DC motors with incremental encoder feedback, the CS110100 is able to drive the motor in velocity mode or position

mode. For DC motors without encoder feedback, the CS110100 is able to drive the motor via PWM. The on-board motion processor allows users to change motion control parameters, such as PID parameters, motor configuration, etc.

The motor controller has three operating modes: UART Mode — the CS110100 is able to interface with a host controller, such as the C Stamp (sold separately) via the serial port. In this mode, the CS110100 will receive AT commands sent from the host controller to change its speed, position, etc; I²C Mode — the CS110100 is able to interface with the host controller via an I²C port. The I²C address is selectable from 0x70 to 0x7E. The host controller is able to control the CS110100 by I²C commands; Radio Control PWM Mode — the CS110100 can be connected to RC receivers directly so that the motor speeds can be controlled by the RC remote controller. In this mode, users may choose to run the two motors under coordinated mode or independent mode. This mode is especially useful in building RC remote robots. Some technical specifications are: • Power Supply Voltage: 7V-24V • Power Consumption: 2W (without motors) • Processor Speed: 40 MHz