Skip to main content

Learn

First robot

Outline published The outline is settled, the content isn't written yet.

A two-wheel robot that dodges walls on its own — and you can explain what every wire is for.

Tell me what's missing
Salim Robot winking
What you need before starting
None. If you've never held a soldering iron, this is exactly the right starting point.
Time
About 6 hours, at your pace

The outline

  1. What's in the box

    Recognize every part and understand its job before touching anything. We read the whole schematic first — faster than discovering it halfway through.

    30 min

  2. Soldering without burning anything

    The iron, the solder, the movements. Plus the five mistakes that cost you a board — all of them made at least once by the person writing this.

    1 h

  3. Making a motor turn

    First line of code, first movement. We start from nothing moving and work out why it eventually does.

    1 h

  4. Seeing the wall coming

    The ultrasonic sensor: from a raw signal to a distance in centimetres. What it really measures, and what it misses.

    1 h

  5. Deciding on its own

    The loop that turns a measurement into a turn. This is where the object stops obeying and starts reacting.

    1 h 30

  6. When it doesn't work

    Reading a problem instead of starting over. The most useful module in the course, and the one most tutorials skip.

    1 h

The hardware

This kit has a course

Discovery Kit — two-wheel robot

Your first robot. Arduino, two motors, a distance sensor, and everything needed to make it dodge walls on its own.

How this course is made

The outline and the first drafts are built with AI tools. Every step is then actually assembled, tested on a real robot and corrected by hand before publication — that's the part that takes time, and it's the part that counts. We say so because it's the house trade: showing how we use it beats selling it in the abstract.