BUILDING THE SPARKFUN MICRO:BOT

      The interactive robot you'll be building and programming, the Micro:bot, is available through the SparkFun website here:  https://www.sparkfun.com/products/16275 The kit includes a chassis, wheels, motors, servos, line following sensors, and the moto:bit breakout board for your Micro:bit.  The Micro:bit is not included in the kit but you can also find one at Sparkfun: https://www.sparkfun.com/products/14336 

     Sparkfun provides an excellent guide for the Micro:bot.  There are detailed explanations of the components, assembly instructions with lots of photos and tips, and several experiments for your robot.  The experiments sections also includes examples of MakeCode code for that experiment that can be copied to the online MakeCode editor or downloaded to the Micro:bit.  The guide (over 80 pages) is here: https://learn.sparkfun.com/tutorials/microbot-kit-experiment-guide/all  There is an option for printing the guide, but to save paper you can "print" it as a PDF saved to your computer.

     You will have to add MakeCode extensions (special commands) for the Micro:bot, but that is covered in detail in the guide in the section following Assembly.  

Video clip from SparkFun Micro:bot Guide

Tips for Assembling the Micro:bot

     The SparkFun guide is very thorough with lots of graphics and images.  But there are a couple of places where assembly can be a bit tricky so I'm providing a couple of hints, based on my own experiences building these bots.

     Snapping pieces into the chassis.  This is one of the most difficult steps for me, especially snapping the motor assemblies to the lower chassis.  I think the challenge comes from pushing the plastic tabs through the narrow slots.  I first tried pushing one tab in then pushing/pulling the chassis and the piece I was trying to attach to get the second tab in.  I never got that to work.  What I found worked best was to line the tab up with the slot as closely as possible, then push down as evenly as possible on both sides of the chassis on either side of the slot.  The tabs are a bit tapered on the outside, so they do fit through the slot.  Not too much pressure though!

     Maneuvering wires/cables.  After you've snapped the top and bottom chassis parts together, you have to move the wires/cables from the bottom up to the top through a couple of small openings.  A small pair of needle nose pliers or some tweezers make this a lot easier to do if you don't have narrow, agile fingers.  Just don't grip the wires too hard with the pliers.

     Snapping the moto:bit into the plastic cradle.  According to the instructions, you should place the moto:bit into the lowest level slots in the plastic cradle.  I've never been able to do this - I'm sure there's a way to make this happen, but while I put one side into the lowest level slot, I can never get the other side into that slot.  Of the four levels, I can never go farther down than level 2.  Involving a friend with very strong fingers pushing the cradle arms further apart might help, but I've never wanted to apply the force that seems to be needed to push the moto: bit further down.  That means my moto:bit micro:bit assembly is not level, parallel to the chassis, but that has never seemed to influence performance.