Poppy Ergo Jr without 3D printed parts nor wooden plate

The Poppy Ergo Jr robot arm belongs to the same family as Poppy Humanoid and Poppy Torso released in 2015, which have already begun to conquer the world of research and education!

The Poppy project

Poppy is an open-source platform for creating, using and sharing interactive robotic objects. It’s aimed at both beginners and experts in the fields of education, science and art as well as robot makers in general.

It was designed as a tool for learning, creating and sharing ideas and technologies relating to all things digital.

The Poppy technology platform comprises open-source hardware models (CC-BY-SA) and an open-source Pypot software library based on the Python programming language.

There’s also a dedicated online community where all users can access documentation, tutorials, software and simulators and help improve the platform: http://www.poppy-project.org.

Poppy is a technology platform for creating all types of creatures and other robots. The Poppy project’s founders have so far invented three creatures, but you can also design your own robot using the platform. The three creatures are:

• Poppy Humanoid
• Poppy Torso
• Poppy Ergo Jr

The Poppy ecosystem, originally developed by the FLOWERS team of French lab INRIA was transferred in 2018 to the association Poppy Station.

Generation Robots, historical distributor of the Poppy robots, is founder partner of Poppy Station.

Overview of Poppy Ergo Jr

Poppy Ergo Jr is the Ergo robot’s younger brother, developed initially for the Mathematics: A Beautiful Elsewhere art/science project. Born of a partnership between the Inria Flowers team, Labri and film director David Lynch (Dune, Mulholland Drive, Elephant Man), the experiment was aimed at exploring artificial curiosity and language discovery in robots.

The “Mathematics: A Beautiful Elsewhere” art/science project

The Poppy project first was conceived in the Inria Bordeaux Sud-Ouest Flowers laboratory, a flagship French research centre specialising in information technologies.

The Poppy Ergo Jr kit

The Poppy Ergo Jr Kit, less expensive than the Poppy Humanoid robot, familiarises users with the Poppy technology platform and introduces them to its open-source universe. The Poppy Ergo Jr robot kit comes with an activity booklet and some building instructions.

It includes 6 Dynamixel XL-320 servo motors, used commonly in research prototyping and robotics projects, controlled by a Pixl board.

This version does not come with the 3D-printed parts, if you’d rather print the 3D parts yourself! You’ll find the STL files on the Poppy forum. You can also find the Poppy Ergo Jr kit with 3D parts on our website.

You can print the 3D parts yourself!

You can customise the end of the Poppy Ergo Jr arm, and the kit comes with several interchangeable accessories: a lampshade, a gripper and a pen holder.

In the STL files, you’ll find several different ends for the Poppy Ergo Jr arm: a lampshade, a gripper and a pen holder.

Because Poppy Ergo Jr is an open-source robot, you can of course create and adjust your own 3D-printed end according to your project!

Poppy Ergo Jr: an educational tool

The Poppy project was created with the aim of helping everyone to understand and shape the digital world in which we live. The creatures in the Poppy family are ideal tools for teachers.

Use of educational platforms like Poppy Ergo Jr will take on new meaning following the French school reforms planned for this coming autumn.

Below are just some of the teaching objectives (added to the French lower secondary curriculum for autumn 2016) that can be met using the Poppy Ergo Jr robot:

• Knowledge of programming (create, write and execute a computer program)
• Spatial awareness and movement, using or creating illustrations
• Creation of a technological object and analysis of its structure and how it functions
• Understanding of how a computer network functions
• Collaborative creation of a communicating object prototype
• Creation of solutions meeting actual needs and materialisation of an idea integrating a design dimension

Poppy Education, the open-source educational robotics specialist, proudly presents its Poppy Ergo Jr Kit

Each Poppy Ergo Jr Kit comes with a manual of educational activities, so you can get quickly started with this robot and to make organising educational workshops simpler.

The Poppy platform has its own, very active online community. Users are invited to share their feedback and ideas for activities involving the Poppy Ergo Jr robot on the following page: educational activities involving the Poppy Ergo Jr robot

The Poppy technology

3D structural components	A programming software library
In the Poppy community, the 3D files needed to print structural parts are made available to all.	The Pypot library in Python for programming robots created using the Poppy platform. Poppy robots can also be programmed visually using Snap!
Models available for simulators	An active community
V-Rep offers a simulation of the Poppy Ergo Jr robot.	Poppy’s user community is growing bigger every day, as you’ll see if you follow their very active forum and the different uses of their Poppy robots.

In addition to programming your robot traditionally, in Python, you can program it using WiFi and a standard web browser via IPython.

Like the other Poppy creatures, the Ergo robot can also be programmed in Snap!, a visual programming language designed for teaching pupils and beginners computer science and mathematics.

The concept: each brick represents a set of preconfigured basic instructions, which you then simply assemble and run from within a web browser.

An example of script compiled using the Snap! programming language

Technical characteristics of the Poppy Ergo Jr robot

Poppy Ergo Jr is a small robot arm with 6 degrees of freedom. It works with Dynamixel XL-320 servo motors controlled by a Pixl board. This board also powers the Raspberry Pi 3 Model B board.

It takes 1 to 2 hours to assemble the Poppy Ergo Jr robot, and with a little practice you’ll need just 30 minutes! The robot is also very easy to disassemble, thanks to its OLLO rivets and 3D parts.

No soldering is required to put this robotics kit together, making it ideal for use in the classroom.

The GIF image below will take you to the Poppy Ergo Jr assembly guide.

Hardware contained in the Poppy Ergo Jr robot kit

The Poppy Ergo Jr robot comes with all the necessary components and in kit form. You’ll need to assemble it from scratch. As seen above, you can find videos online showing you how to assemble the robot. The kit contains:

• 6 x Dynamixel XL-320 servo motors
• 1 x OLLO tool
• 1 x Pack of RS-10 OLLO rivets
• 1 x Pixl board
• 1 x Raspberry Pi 3 model B board
• 1 x 8 GB microSD memory card
• 4 x M2.5x6 screws
• 4 x M2x5 screws
• 4 x N1 M2 bolts
• 1 x 7.5V power supply for the Pixl board
• 1 x Camera Module V2 for Raspberry Pi
• 1 x RJ45 1m Ethernet cable
• 1 x Activity booklet
• In this version, the Poppy Ergo Jr 3D parts are not supplied with the kit

 Do not power the Raspberry Pi card through the USB port when it is powered via the Pixl card.

Resource for Poppy Ergo Jr without 3D printed nor wooden plate

• Online documentation for Poppy Ergo Jr