I recently found this funny, robot-like computer with ATmega88A. 8 kB Flash, 1 kB SRAM, 8 MHz. 2 touch sensors and IR. At least 2 different variants. One for elementary class, other for 5th grade up.
Unfortunately, they didn’t exist when I was a kid.
I first found it for 700 EUR, but it turned out that this was a set of 12.
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That’s very modern… So I’ll try to put a retro spin on it…
Not sure how long ago you were a kid, but I was 15/16 in '78 when I used the Apple II and was at Uni when the BBC Micro was all the rage here in the UK…
On the (school) robotics front… We had the Big Track:
which came out in about '79 but after that … I don’t remember much, but when Turtle Graphics were a thing, there were several hardware turtle devices for the Beeb (and possibly others). The down-side was that battery and autonomous technology wasn’t quite there yet, so they all had long umbilical cable back to the host Beeb…
Although a quick search find this one controlled via Infra Red:
On the Big Track front I remember programming it to go out the classroom, up the corridor, into the next class, “shoot” the teacher then come back… All good fun!
My university work involved software engineering, electronics and mechanical engineering in a factory-automation sort of manner. At one point I had an AGV which I could sit on controlled by a Beeb…
Today - all manner of computer toys have evolved - almost too much some might say with everyone having their own ideas about how to program them and deploy them…
-Gordon
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