The Hummingbird robotics kit is a spin-off product of Carnegie Mellon's CREATE lab. Hummingbird is designed to enable engineering and robotics activities for ages 10 and up that involve the making of robots, kinetic sculptures, and animatronics built out of a combination of kit parts and crafting materials. Combined with a cross-platform, very easy-to-use visual programming environment, Hummingbird provides a great way to introduce kids to robotics and engineering with construction materials that they are already familiar with.
The Hummingbird kit contains a large number of sensors, lights, and motors compared to similarly priced kits. To get a closer look at the kit components, check out the Hummingbird site or watch the video. For technical details about the controller and kit components, refer to the datasheet.
Kit includes:
- Control. The Hummingbird controller is the core of the kit and provides the means to use the various motors, LEDs, and sensors. The control sub-kit also includes an auxiliary motor power supply, a USB cable to connect Hummingbird to the computer, and a handy screwdriver to simplify connecting components.
- Light and vibration. The Hummingbird kit contains eight single color LEDs (two each of green, red, yellow, and orange), as well as two tri-color LEDs. It also contains two vibration motors similar to the type found in cell phones.
- Motion. The Hummingbird comes with four HS-311 servos, four extension cables for these servos, and two regular DC motors.
- Sensing. Hummingbird comes with light, temperature, sound, and distance sensors, as well as a rotary knob. Other sensors may be released over time.
