You might be wondering what the difference is between using your robot with the Little Robot Friends App compared to using it with the Arduino programming environment. Let’s have a look at what each app allows you to do with your robot.
The Little Robot Friends App is meant as an introduction to your robot and how to customize the way it expresses itself. You can use default expressions or create your own custom expressions and then map them as responses to the different inputs of your robot. The app is also a place for you to name your robot. Overall, it acts as a great place for you to start configuring your robot.
You may be wanting to do more complicated things with your robot, that’s where Arduino comes in. If you haven’t already, check out our guide on what Arduino is. With Arduino, you can have total control over your robot’s behaviour. Similarly to the Little Robot Friends App, you can customize expressions and create your own, however, with Arduino you can code complex “tricks” and even create songs. A “trick” is the term we call a custom program in Little Robot Friends; with Arduino you can program custom code that the robot can perform. For example, you could code a security guard program that sets off an alarm if the robot is moved, like we have created here.
Arduino requires you to code in a language called C++, we have a variety of resources in our activities section to get you started with coding in Arduino. You can start with this intro guide to getting started with Arduino. Additionally, www.arduino.cc is a great resource for learning about beginning to code with Arduino.
When working with both the Little Robot Friends App and Arduino, it’s important to know that after you upload custom code using Arduino, you need to restore the default code. Find out more here.
Below is a comparison of what features are available between both platforms.
