Birthday Bot

20m

Introduction

SURPRISE!

In this activity, design a Birthday Bot to share with your friends and family using the Little Robot Friends App. Create a custom “SURPRISE!” expression, craft a fun costume, and get ready for the best birthday ever.

Getting setup

First, you’ll need to get started with a few programs, tools, and materials! Here’s a list of the things you’ll need:

  • Computer
  • LRF App
  • Markers or Pencil Crayons
  • Scissors
  • Paper
  • Print
  • Tape

Download the Costume: birthday-bot-costume.pdf.

Important

This is an LRF App activity, so make sure you download the App here.

Explore your character

Birthday Bot is one of our special characters from the Little Robot Friend Special Edition Character Card Series (#5002). Learn more about this character below!

Birthday Bot

The life of any party, Birthday Bot lives to celebrate. Going to parties and causing a ruckus is this bot’s ideal weekend. Coming from a long history of party-bots, Birthday Bot loves to dance and sing songs.

  • Favourite Expressions: Very Excited, Hysterical, Giggle
  • Favourite Song: Happy Birthday
  • Special Trick: Birthday Candle

Set Birthday Bot’s favourite expressions

Your Birthday Bot has three favourite expressions: Very Excited, Hysterical and Giggle - These are preset expressions you can find in the Little Robot Friends App. To learn how to set these expressions, check out the page here.

Don’t Forget

Expression can only have up to four sounds!

Important

If you don’t know how to get started in the LRF App, go here.

Program a Surprise! expression (Part A: Sound)

Let’s program a surprise expression for Birthday Bot. This expression will sound like your character is shouting Surprise! to the birthday boy or girl.

From the sensor menu, choose the sound sensor.

Home Screen Complete

Choose any preset expression. We’ll choose Hello, but it won’t matter which one you select because we’ll be customizing it.

Presets

Begin by renaming the expression to Surprise

Rename the Expression

This expression is made up of four sounds. There are already two notes in the Editor. Drag the first sound bar up to note C#. Drag the second sound bar up to note D.

Drag the Note

Now, we’ll need to add two more notes. You can do this by clicking on the + button at the bottom.

Add Button

Drag the third sound bar to note D# and the fourth sound bar to note E. The next step is to adjust the duration in-between each note. For this expression we want each note to be one square apart. The notes are already set like this so we don’t need to change anything!

Drag the Note

It’s time to customize the note length, intonation, and octave of each sound. Click on the first sound bar (note F#). Change the note length to 1, the intonation to rising, and the octave to the lightest colour.

Customize the Note

Repeat the previous step for the next two notes. This will make the expression sound like it’s climbing up and up and up!

Customize the Note

For the last sound bar (note E), change the note length to 4, the intonation to rise, and the octave to the lightest colour.

Customize the Note

Preview the expression by clicking on the play button. Now, we’ll move on to the robot’s eye patterns!

Preview the Expression

Don’t Forget

Expression can only have up to four sounds!

Important

If you don’t know how to get started in the LRF App, go here.

Program a Blast Off! expression (Part B: Pattern)

It’s time to customize the colour and light patterns on your robot’s eyes. For this surprise expression, we won’t need to select a start or end colour. Instead, we’re going to choose the random transformation, which will cause the eyes to change lots of different colours.

Customize the Colour

Map your expression to a sensor!

To map your Surprise expression to a sensor, exit the Expression Editor by clicking on the back button.

Go Back

The expression is auto-magically saved in your My Expressions library. Drag-and-drop the expression onto the Loud Noise event. Now, shout SURPRISE into the microphone!

Assign the Expression

Important

To learn about the robot’s many sensors, go here.

Print your costume

Print the costume out on regular paper, or cardstock paper if you want it to last longer. Whip out the pencil crayons, markers, and scissors. Secure the costume onto your robot with a bit of tape and you’re done!

Costume

Don’t Forget

Download your costume, here.!

Important

Make sure you print your costume in Actual Size, otherwise it won’t fit!

What’s next?

You’re done creating your Birthday Bot character. Now take this activity one step further! Make this birthday celebration even better with a few fun challenges.

Challenge 1:

Customize the eye colour and transformation to your preference!

Challenge 2:

How does Birthday Bot react after it has stuffed its face with cake? Program an expression!

Challenge 3:

Level up by trying the Birthday Candle Bot Arduino Trick. See if you can program your robot to sing Happy Birthday and transform into a flickering candle using C & C++.