The Saint Paul Academic Robotics Kit, SPARKY, Aims for Eco-Friendly and Accessible Education
Designed around an Adafruit Feather, with Raspberry Pi Pico and Arduino alternatives, SPARKY aims to improve access to robotics for all.
Pseudonymous maker "huebner5000," hereafter simply "Huebner," has designed a robot platform for academia and more which aims to be easily reproducible using makerspace-level manufacturing tools: SPARKY.
"SPARKY (Saint Paul Academic Robotics Kit) is an open academic robotics platform with the aim of making robotics accessible to all students," Huebner explains of the modular design. "It is user-assembled from makerspace-manufacturable parts (3D printed and laser cut) and widely available commercial off-the-shelf low-cost parts."
Designed as a two-wheel robot, the SPARKY chassis is made from laser-cut wood and 3D-printed brackets and mounts, all held together with M3 bolts and nuts. Its chassis is covered in holes, and they're not just for show: the grid is designed for expandability, making it easy to mount new hardware using more M3 bolts.
The robot's standard load-out includes an ultrasonic distance sensor, line-following infrared sensors, a color sensor, and a Neopixel RGB LED strip, plus two DC motors with axle encoders and a micro servo — though this, Huebner explains, is all customizable.
While the SPARKY platform aims to be microcontroller-agnostic, to allow builders to pick whatever they are most familiar with or is most easily or cheaply acquired, the standard build uses a Feather-format board and CircuitPython or Arduino firmware. The robot is controlled via Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) using Adafruit's Bluefruit Connect App, and a FeatherWing motor driver used to save space. "Raspberry Pi Pico and Arduino configurations are also possible," Huebner notes.
"[SPARKY is] designed to minimize plastic where possible," Huebner adds of the robot's design considerations. "[It can be] made with bioplastic and renewable resources (plywood). Local makerspace manufacturing reduces transportation footprint."
Huebner has published a guide to building your own SPARKY on Instructables, complete with the laser-cutting and 3D-printing files; these are also available on Printables, under the reciprocal Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International license.