May the (robo) Force be with you – CHRP4 giveaway!

CHRP4 giveaway details

Are you a teacher in the U.S.A. or in Canada? (Sorry, this giveaway does not apply to galaxies countries, far, far away.) Are you looking for a project that enables your students to learn microcontroller programming and interfacing, and then use that project to build simple line-following robots, obstacle-sensing robots, remote-controlled robots, or fully autonomous Sumo robots? Then, submit to the Force at hyperspace speed to win!

What are we giving away?

We are giving away one assembled CHRP4 circuit board with an ultrasonic sensor and floor sensors ready for installation in a robot, a simple robo base kit with two DC motors which is ideal for making any of the types of simple robots except for the Sumo robot (Sumo robots need gear motors – we’ll let you know where to find good ones), as well as four blank CHRP4 circuit boards and four pre-programmed microcontrollers that can be built into four more robots by you and your students. You’ll just need to solder in the included floor sensors for your particular robot build and add batteries, and your first robot will be ready to program!

You can order the parts for your students to assemble the other four CHRP4 circuit boards using our shared Digi-Key parts list and have your students complete the circuits following our assembly instructions so they can build them into robots of their own design or by using the first one as an example.

How do I use the Force to program CHRP4?

No Force required, just some software and skills. CHRP4 is programmed in C using using Microchip’s free MPLAB X IDE software or MPLAB Xpress cloud-based IDE, and the microcontrollers come pre-programmed with a USB bootloader so you will only need a USB-C cable to download the compiled program code into each CHRP4. Use the introductory programming activities on our site to get started learning and programming CHRP4!

Enter, you must!

To qualify, you have to be a teacher in the U.S.A. or Canada, currently teaching a computer technology or electronics course. Use the message section of our contact form to let us know what grade, course, or program you teach, and to provide a brief explanation of how you would use CHRP4 in your classroom or how CHRP4 would be helpful to your students or program. We will select one lucky submission from all entries submitted by May 11, 2023 to win the giveaway. No purchase necessary to enter, and the CHRP4 circuits and robot components will be sent to the winning educator’s school by post paid mail or courier on or after May 12, 2023. Complete the contact form including your school’s name in the Company or school field, and make sure to enter your school email address to let us know where you teach. Hurry, submissions for this CHRP4 giveaway close at 11:59 pm on May 11, 2023!

Is it a trap?

No, it’s not a trap! Thanks to PCBWay, we received five sample CHRP4 printed circuit boards. We built one, and it’s really very nice, but it’s not the same shade of blue as a clear sky on Hoth (or our other circuits). So, we decided we would much rather give them away to a school that could use them than to try and negotiate a fair price for them as robot scrap with the Jawas. Help us get rid of them – you’re our only hope!