🇻🇳 From 9pm to 2am Vietnam Time ‎(UTC+7)‎ !

Did anyone take notes. Must of missed the party. Can you dictate the projects you are working on and the progress made on the blockly update.. thanks.

Bill SCHONFELDER
We talked about Otto micro:bit, possible shields to use.
Df mini delay bug solved.
Good speakers to use for audio player.
OLED mouths and eyes for Otto
Visual studio for collaborative text coding
Ivan showed cool games with Otto scratch

Claudio Gasparini show us his cardboard Otto that he will post here.
Esp8266 and esp31 libraries and new blocks for iot.
Servo library

Ideas for education in robotics including more out of screen activities, tangible programming robots and games.

Did I miss something? Nicolas Piers Kennedy

Camilo Parra Palacio Will blockly ever have the ability to do multiple oleds or can it do it now. We conquered the multiple images, are we going to conquer using more than one oled?

What is happening with the gamepad is that getting shelved or it actively being pursued now or later?

How soon before the next release is available?

Those are my three questions.

"This might be the point where we bin the Funduino and go for the separate joystick/button modules and not have all of the redundant headers."

Small is sometimes better unless you have big fingers. Then you wan't more grip for your buttons and case

Would it be safe to say then. ( about the multiple displays). If it can be done in a sketch, mutiple oleds, then it can't always be done in blockly? There are videos of sketches using 5 oleds off a nano or uno. Just trying to get a bearing on what is possible or not if I see it done on you tube or somewhere on the internet.

Once I get a base to work from it makes the tasks of finding or questioning what is possible a reality.

Piers Kennedy you make the call when this should be a project. I can see this thread turning into one. As to the benefits of otto, mutiple oleds can be used in facial expressions. I personally have my own reasons to want them.

I have been pushing this every to do some pretty intense stuff. So far I have not reached its limits. That rocket man program was using a ton of images. But if it can be coded in blockly I am game to pickup and purchase these new "brains" to play with.

I was disappointed to learn just how many "brains" are close sourced and sealed up like a scroll.

Bill SCHONFELDER nano every compared to a normal nano is RAM * 3, program memory * 1.5 and clock speed * 1.25. Just a tiny step further and looks like a lot only when you come from the very limited atmega nano.

ESP 32 is RAM * 250, program memory * 100, clock speed * 10 * dual core + wifi & bluetooth + loads of hardware peripherals + RTOS to run parallel tasks. Another world...

Sort of like an atari xl with 128 bit. and a windows 10 dual core.
Nicolas case wise, do these come with shields, can they be used the same as the nano when it comes to size and dimensions. Are there cheap knock offs of this esp? Eds cost quite a bit compared to a nano every. Will they have universal boards to use or will they closed source circuitry ?

Can you point to me on amazon what the boards you have in mind you plan to use? I would like to take a look and see if I can find a model on grabcad. thanks.

Is this it?
https://www.amazon.com/Aokin-ESP-WROOM-32-Development-Bluetooth-Microcontroller/dp/B08NW6K357/ref=sr_1_17?dchild=1&keywords=esp+32&qid=1622385489&sr=8-17

This one has https://www.amazon.com/Aokin-ESP-WROOM-32-Development-Bluetooth-Microcontroller/dp/B08NW6K357/ref=sr_1_17?dchild=1&keywords=esp+32&qid=1622385489&sr=8-17a tiny camera

Bill SCHONFELDER yes the board format and extension is the "problem" here, there is an IO board (called ESP32-IO) but it needs some modifications to run 5V servos. The pinout is compatible with "NodeMCU" ESP32 board, this pinout: https://www.ebay.com/itm/133026359564

There are also board in Wemos D1 mini format (but it seems no IO/servo board for them), or ESP 32 in Arduino Uno format, in all cases the pinout is public and there's no need to investigate like on the tokymaker (which is not that hard to understand anyway).

It's a bit bigger than a nano in the "NodeMCU" format, but the same with IO adapter board. And no need for "knock off" as it's cheap by design, a module is <5$ and the module on a development board (like on link above) is <10$ and easily found <5$. Cheaper than nano + bluetooth adapter.

And it's also not too difficult to start from the ESP32 module alone (including ESP32 IC, 4MB memory and antenna) to design a custom PCB that can then be smaller than nano+shields available online if you want to go the open source hardware way. I made one for another project and on a 5*5cm surface it has ESP32 module, USB port + battery connector + battery charger with power path, step down, 240*240 pixels IPS LCD, accelerometer, IO Extender, connector for plug-in boards, SD card reader, SPI flash chip, neopixel, NRF24 connector, 3-way navigation button. So without the unnecessary stuff for an Otto there's enough room to connect servos and end up with a board much smaller than what we have now with nanos and no need for any bluetooth module, IMU sensor etc

The only reason I shy away from the custom PCB is because of this stupid virus and our relationship with China. Being state side my options are either ebay or Amazon. I deleted my account on Ebay after they changed thier return policies in 2020.
Places like adafruit, sparkfun and digikey are price gougers imho.. It might be the same or different over there. But here it is very limited, and very closed source.

I have been wanting to point out too.
Is the hype greater than the facts.

Bill SCHONFELDER
ESP32 has been around for a few years, there are different versions of ESP32 now but if you stay on the initial one it's very well integrated with Arduino, except the dodgy ADC everything advertised is working and you can effectively do thing like use a camera to do face recognition, do speech synthesis outputting data on the I2S peripheral etc And no problem with its wifi capabilities, it's used in many wifi modules, including arduino boards like the nano-33 Iot, which end up having a wifi module much more powerful than the main microcontroller...
The only drawback is the power consumption, but on a robot with hungry servos or stepper motors, LCD, led arrays etc it's not really an issue IMHO.

Nicolas In the technology business, I have seen many new and exciting things that are developed or showcased. Only to be either completely taken down or closed down due to lack of facts or funding. My question was based on that assumption. Is the hype greater than the facts? You sort of answered it. I did some research about shields for these new boards, not a detailed study, but a glance, on Amazon. I did not see anything like a pca8965 or shield for this module. I may be getting in way over my head here. I don't code nor plan to learn.

Bill SCHONFELDER I will work on Arduino version then blockly, so you won't have to learn to code ;)
For PCA 8965 there are cheap breakout boards, you just need to connect power and I2C and you're done, having a specific shield for each MCU/dev board is not necessary.
ESP32 and Espressif (parent company) won't disappear overnight they sell decent products, increase sales year after year and are profitable.

Piers Kennedy ""Let's face it, it will not be long before another awesome chip/board comes out.""

That's so very true. I remember back when kk2.0 boards were hackable, open source and then programmable with a usb hub. We flashed new updates on them all the time on these. (Drones)
The came along DJI (China). They flooded the market in the cs shows, bought up thier competitions at cheap prices, then hooked a deal with the faa. Now you have a closed ccd and you have to pay to fly.
That is why I am believer in graphical interfaces like Blockly.
Fast results, cheap parts and just your imagination. Well that a good printer.
Nicolas I learn from history and I question everything.
Sorry for the long lessons. (posts)

"Both Ladyada and her husband (founder of Hackaday) were fully supportive and behind ESP boards; if these are good enough for these uber-dudes, then they should be good enough for us mere mortals."

I reached to her through sparkfun with otto. She wants nothing to do with us. Least that what direct email said.

Piers Kennedy All you have to do is get me a pencil drawing I can take it from there. Show me what you want it too look like. and where to put it. (not literally). Wife is home today, so it will have to be tomorrow. I am out shopping and sitting in my truck while she shops.

Awesome. That will work.