AllCode – The NEW Robot Arm Production Cell

For anyone not up to speed with AllCode the concept is fairly straight forward. Provide users with the tools and examples to control a specific piece of hardware using the programming language of their choice.

With the Formula AllCode robot this means you can program the microcontroller directly or you can use the built in API firmware and control the robot remotely from a variety of devices and programming languages. At Matrix, this led to an office league of Formula AllCode football using Android phones and tablets as the controllers at the last Christmas party. Very amusing for all, until beer got spilt on the pitch…

We have had a lot of great feedback with the AllCode philosophy and so we have plans for a lot more hardware to follow. The latest being our new robot arm production cell complete with curriculum and a whole host of examples.

The arm features 6 degrees of freedom in the form of servo motors and makes for a simple yet effective way at learning the basics of how a robot arm works and how they may be used in industry. As the arm comes pre-built and pre-programmed with the dedicated AllCode API to allow the arm to be operated and controlled from any programming language of choice without any of the associated risks that would potentially come from developing the low level firmware. For example before the arm is allowed to start moving you automatically get a warning on the buzzer that it’s about to start moving.

The programming languages we have supplied examples for include: App Inventor (Android devices), C#, C++, Flowcode, Labview, Matlab, Python, VB and even a bespoke DLL to allow even more choice.

The Robot Arm Production Cell also comes complete with an exercise mat, a grip sensor, coloured counters and a colour sensor allowing you to learn how to pick, place, scan and sort reliably and how these things may be improved in an industrial context to increase reliability and efficiency.

The curriculum even goes into detail about how things like linear interpolation are used to provide more controllable movement and ensure that the robot arm traverses between coordinates in a predictable manner.

The curriculum is currently available to download for free on the Matrix website, here.

If you’re interested in finding out more, give us a call on +44 (0)1422 252380.

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